This was fine. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. I’m fat and I’m always down to read a romance with a fat main character. Love to see the representation. The thing is that I would have appreciated if she like had a personality other than just a girl who was always thinking about her body and being down on herself. I really don’t think she had any other notable traits. The internal monologue was a bit much at times. I know we can’t love our bodies every second, I certainly don’t but it was just not fun to listen to.

The spicy scenes were good though. The blood drinking, okayyyy. I liked the storyline. I would read a book about the friend and the slayer if she wrote it!

I love vampire stories and the idea of someone waking up and suddenly being a vampire seemed so entertaining to me.Unfortunately, this one just fell flat for me. Lily’s character is so obsessed with her weight and not in a positive way. Even in the end when all the character’s have convinced her to be happy and love herself she still focuses on the negative. The weight obsession found a way to take over and overshadow the plot for me.

When Life Give You Vampires was a paranormal rom com that I was looking forward to reading to start off the fall season for me. It kind of fell a little for me in the end even though it started out strong.

Lily one day woke up one morning half naked and craving blood. Not sure why or even how she ended up in this state, she couldn’t remember what happened the night before.

She rushes to her best friend's place and that is when it all comes rushing back to her. Her night where a vampire tried drinking from her and then accidentally turned her into a vampire.

Being forever undead could have its perks. But Lily realized that the one thing she can’t undo and has always struggled with was her size. She will forever be plus size as an immortal vampire.

Lily always struggled with her weight by going on crash diets, being pressured by her mother to lose weight and consistently bringing herself down. So, you see the journey Lily goes through to accept her body as it is forever.

Then there is Tristin, the vampire that accidentally turned her. The thing is, in the vampire world, that was actually considered illegally turning her and now they must pay the consequences. They both must be put to death by the grand master vampire.

So, Tristin and Lily must hatch a plan to save them both from that fate. Along the way the attractions grow, and they end up developing feelings for each other.

What I liked:
I loved how there were issues addressed on body positivity and Lily’s attitude that seems to do more harm than good. Her attitude towards herself and focusing so much on what other people thought of her really held her back from enjoying life.

I really liked how there is a slayer introduced and how they come to be in the world.

I love her relationship with her best friend Cat who was willing to stick it through thick and thin for her.

What I didn’t like:
[ The pacing of the story was really off in this story. There would be a buildup of action and then its flat lines into nothing.

The chemistry wasn’t really there for me between Tristin and Lily. Lily spent a lot of time being mad at Tristin and cursing him out. Then when she needed to drink blood, BAM now I like you.
Gideon, the bad guy, felt absent in the story even though he was sending her death threats. There was no build of character for the villain. You finally meet the guy for a few pages, then it is over. You find out at the end why this guy hated Tristin so much at the end, but I felt that it would have been better placed in a different part of the story.

The ending. Lily’s mom with no question now accepts her size and her being a vampire. Kind of says I love you, this is who your random biological father is and moves on. I did not know that Lilly really cared about knowing her father was. Then when you found out, your first reaction was “huh?” then it followed with “who?”

All the Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer references. It kind of got old after a while. There wasn’t an incredible amount of world building, just an urban setting and compared it to Twilight or Buffy throughout the whole time.

Personally, the kidnapping aspect would have been better if it was Cat and not Lily’s mom. The relationship between her and Cat was fleshed out more than the mom was, and I would have been more on the edge of my seat if it was Cat.

Thank you Net galley and Sourcebooks for the book arc. I also got the audiobook for this from Dreamscape. Will say the audiobook narrator Meg Slyvan was great and recommend listen to her narration. Meg Slyvan did a great job bringing main characters of Lily to life after she turned into a vampire. I would love to hear more of her plus her emotion scenes where stellar and she brought action to life.

For me this book was a book about Lily with a little romance and adventure thrown in. Lily just got turned into a vampire and was inserted into a war between two older male ones. While lily and some character for the most part where flushed out well and I love her and Cat’s friendship as well as Raven. I couldn’t get into Tristan’s story as much. The secret felt anticlimactic and the thrown in character that died just was not flushed out well enough for me to care. The romance just didn’t grab me as much as Lily’s other relationships and the action adventure side of the book. Those where the things that stole the show for me. I may have cared more about Tristan if we got his POV. Overall I’d love to try read Gloria Dukeagain. While the romance was not as I usually want it at I did enjoy what this was am giving it 3.5 stars (upgraded to 4stars on this scale).

2⭐️

thank you netgalley and the publisher for sending me an eARC!

this was not good. point blank period. i wanted to like this SO MUCH but i seriously could not with either mc. lily was quite annoying (idk if the humor and lingo was just too “millennial” for me but i was cringing too many times) tristan made me want to beat him over the head with a shoe with how misogynistic he was - IDC that he was from “another time” - GET WITH THE PROGRAM HOMIE. also he was a romance writer???? SO UNBELIEVABLE with how he treated lily and like i get that was just thrown into the story to make us like him more 🙄

and i KNOW this was marketed as “a plus size fmc who struggles with insecurities but comes to love herself and be body positive” blah blah blah BUT HER ATTITUDE TURN AROUND???? so unbelievable. also lily’s mother?? HORRIBLE and so undeserving of how lily treated her. like i cannot believe lily was just all friendly with her after what she had done.

the plot?? BORING AF. and the fact that this all takes place in like the span of a week, maybe two made most of it so unbelievable. plus the “secret” that tristan had???? made me want to throw my kindle across the mf room because WTF why was he not talking about it????

what did i like, you may ask?
- the sex scenes weren’t too bad ngl.
- lily’s bestie cat was the only character i actually liked.

that’s it. read if you want but i honestly did not like it and don’t know why i finished it 😂🤔

⚠️tw/cw: body shaming, fatphobia, eating disorder, blood

Give this one a chance - read it in the spirit (hah!) in which it's written and it's a hoot. I'm not a vampire fan but Lily and Tristan, well they're fun. Tristan accidentally turns Lily, a plus size woman, and both of them find themselves dealing with the consequences and the possibilities as well. There's a body positive vibe here even as Lily realizes that being a vampire means you will never lose weight. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is a rom com with a twist.

I was very excited about a plus-sized vampire romance for the spooky season. However, I was a bit disappointed in this story for a few reasons. I would imagine if you are a twilight fan you may like this more. As someone whose never read or watched the series I feel like this is very close to that series.

I loved a plus-size main character I don't love a plus-sized main character who doesn't love herself and is resentful of everyone who I smaller than her and only feels sorry for herself. I want her to love her size and embrace it or celebrate it.

I wasn't a fan of Lily, I found her extremely self-absorbed, and listening to her narrate this story was hard as she thought were often scattered and full of relevant observations

I wish I got Tristan's POV, I think that would have added a nice element to the story since he was the one who accidentally turned her.

What a waste that the ending was with the villain. The ending was a little rushed with the villain - very anti-climatic and I already know a second book will be made including this same villain.. if its a thought please don't do it - it's too easy

Anyways, like I said if you are a fan of twilight I feel like the vibe of this book might stay with you.

Twenty-five year old Lily Baines is used to waking up hungover, overweight, and underemployed. Waking up with fangs? Not so much. But when it turns out a little light necking has more serious consequences than she ever imagined, Lily's determined to get to the bottom of it.

Okay so this was Twilight meets Love Reborn by Tessa Bailey. The plot was hugely fun & entertaining.
I loved how Lily gets to explore her new identity especially with Tristan.

Lily & Tristan's initial confused interactions were hilarious.
It was a quick & enjoyable read but I did hope the writing could have been a little better, you know so as to get the full depth of the situation.

It was a quick & enjoyable read & I'm desperately for a Cat & Evan book.

<i>Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.<i>

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc. This review is wholly my own.

I was excited for this book as a I enjoy a good supernatural story as well as a MC who finds themselves, but this one was BAD.

The writing style was awful. The phrasing was terrible. It was just hard to take seriously and get into.

The characters are completely unlikeable, ESPECIALLY the hero.

Too many elder millennial themes. The author just tried to accomplish too much and did not do it well. Less is more in this case.

Would not recommend and sad that I lost quality reading time reading this one.

I found this to be a fun journey featuring a plus size young woman with body issues and an old-fashioned guy haunted by issues from his past. I really loved Lilys best friend Cat. I could relate to Cat when she flat out tells Lily that she is more than the skin she inhabits and to learn to love herself no matter how much she weighs. There were times I wanted to Gibbs slap both Lily and Tristan. But ultimately, I enjoyed their tale.

Cute and fun new take on the vampire story. Plus sized heroine wakes up as a vampire with no memory of how she became the undead and has unrealistic expectations of what her new change will mean for her physical appearance. She has to navigate her new undead life while learning to love her body as is for the rest of eternity.

Lily has struggled with accepting herself and the way she looks her entire life. With encouragement from her mother she has tried every diet food and fad diet available. Her world is flipped upside down when she goes out for margs with her friend, Cat. Tristan a mysterious stranger comes into her life and nothing is ever the same.

The premise of this book instantly drew me in. A plus size woman is turned into a vampire and given eternal life; it definitely breaks the decades old vampire perception. I really appreciated the character development Lily went through as she navigates being a new vampire and accepting herself for who she is.

This book took me a while to get into due to the writing style. It’s written using abbreviations like “obvi” instead of “obviously” and lists throughout the book. I understand it is supposed to mimic how a 25 year old may speak but it took away from this great story.

Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca for the ARC. This book was received in exchange for an honest review.

I love vampire stories! And this one didn't disappoint too much. Lily is 25. One day she wakes up to realize that she is now a vampire. How did this happen? She can't really remember, but then she does. The night before she met Tristen and when she realizes he was the one who turned her, her journey begins.

This is a fun vampire book. With all the vampire tropes, including a vampire slayer. The book also has the underlying theme of body positivity as Lily really struggles with loving her body, dealing with diet culture, and loving herself as she is, not who anyone else thinks she should be. Now that she is a vampire, she has to come to terms with what that means. Eternal life, never aging, and her body staying exactly the same from now on.

I can see this is being set up for a series so we will see.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed reading this! I loved Lily’s perspective and really enjoyed the author’s writing style, I’ve definitely felt seen in Lily’s characterisations and thought they were done well.

I found the vampire element really fun and easy to read as well. Same with the romance, I enjoyed Tristan and Lily’s chemistry and relationship, I feel like I wish we heard more about this (both vampires and their relationship), we only just scratched the surface but there is so much more I want to know!

I only thought that the ending of the book wasn’t as strong as the rest of it; mainly the show down with the vampire council, and I didn’t particular care for bringing a vampire slayer into it, it seemed an unnecessary element - same with randomly at the end ‘revealing’ Lily’s long lost dad. I think it would have worked better if the tension between Tristan and the council was expanded more and not just solved by Lily saying a few words.

Overall, an amazing debut novel and a fun read!

Lily wakes up from a night out hungover and craving one thing...blood. Somehow she was turned into a vampire, and she has to piece together how this happened. She runs to her best friend for support, and Lily tells her everything. Lily slowly remembers the events of the night and how Tristan accidently turned her into a vamp and in doing so had broken some vampire laws. Lily must quickly become accustomed to her new life and the new threats of being a vampire.

When Life Gives You Vampires is a debut novel, and it was a fun paranormal rom-com that is funny and sexy. With that said I was getting annoyed with a couple things. 1) The arguing on the same topics bc they aren't communicating. 2) I was okay with the repeated word usage of "obvi" at first, but after the 20th time I was a bit vexed by the word.

I love when the female main character is written as plus sized because I can relate to that. Lily really struggles with body image issues, and her mother exacerbates the issue with her fat shaming comments. However, Lily comes to learn that she makes similar comments to other woman that inadvertently shame them. It took Lily a long time to get out of her own way and truly love and accept herself.

Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for giving my a digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF

When Life Gives You Vampires seems like a cute story about self discovery. Unfortunately, I did not finish because the writing style wasn’t for me. I thought this was an adult book but it feels like YA and that’s not the vibe I was looking for.

First, I want to thank Sourcebooks and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I'm a huge fan of the paranormal romance genre and was immediately drawn to the premise of a plus sized main character coming to terms with her body image issues now that she's become immortal.

Duke provides a fun, easy read with When Life Gives You Vampires. However, there were a few plot points that just didn't stick the landing. The main character Lily discovers she has been turned into a vampire very quickly and tends to come across young and naive in spite of being in her mid-twenties. There were a lot of pop culture references that added to the fun and quirky tone of the story but most of the world building is drawn from Twilight which dampens the opportunity to make the world and Duke's version of vampires stand out.

If you're looking for a an easy to read paranormal romance, I would definitely recommend this title.

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. The body positivity, the vampire plot, it was all so well done. When I realized that Lily would be stuck in her body the way it was, a few chapters before she did, I was nervous for her. I understand having body issues, and I can't imagine spending so much time dieting and working to change a body only to be "stuck" in it forever. This isn't me saying I think it was a bad thing that she was stuck in the body she had by any means, it is just fact that she is to remain in her body as it is for eternity. I loved the romance, and was incredibly impressed with the world building. I loved the type of vampires within and was hooked on the plot.

This book was so much fun! I found it so addicting! Some of the narration was a bit cheesy but overall, I enjoyed this book so much!

I didn’t make it very far into this one because of the writing style. It was wayyyy too “modern.” I couldn’t stand all the pop culture references to things like GrubHub, Netflix, and pop icons. The writing was choppy, and the sarcasm was just annoying and didn’t make me laugh at all.