You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

From Barnes & Noble

When vampires fall in love, all hell breaks loose. That seems to be the message of You Suck: A Love Story by Stupidest Angel author Christopher Moore. Teenage bloodsuckers Tommy and Jody are carrying on a torrid romance (apparently, vampire sex is hot), but their magnetic attraction is threatened by a host of intruders. A motley crew of amateur vampire hunters is on the prowl, and the decrepit vampire who "turned" Jody is eager to get his fangs back in her again. Fortunately, with the help of a sympathetic goth girl, love and blood do eventually conquer all. Nocturnal entertainment.

From the Publisher

Being dead sucks. Make that being undead sucks.

Literally. Just ask Thomas C. Flood. Waking up after a fantastic night unlike anything he's ever experienced, he discovers that his girlfriend, Jody—the woman of his dreams—is a vampire. And surprise! Now he's one, too.

For some couples, the whole biting-and-blood thing would have been a deal breaker. But Tommy and Jody are in love, and they vow to work through their issues. Like how much Jody should teach Tommy about his new superpowers (and how much he needs to learn on his own). Plus there's Tommy's cute new minion, sixteen-year-old goth girl Abby Normal. (Well, someone has to run errands during daylight hours!)

Making the relationship work, however, is the least of Jody and Tommy's problems. Word has it that the vampire who nibbled on Jody wasn't supposed to be recruiting any new members into the club. Even worse, Tommy's erstwhile turkey-bowling pals are out to get him, at the urging of a blue-dyed Las Vegas call girl named (duh) Blue.

And that really sucks.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

You Suck is funny enough to reanimate Mr. Moore’s fans, at least those who wondered about the last book’s squirrel types. It’s sure to appeal to anyone who shares the author’s ideas of a fun-loving vampire’s priorities.

Publishers Weekly

Moore's latest (after 2006's A Dirty Job) is a cheerfully perverse, gut-busting tale of young vampires in love. Nineteen-year-old Tommy is a bewildered hipster recently relocated to San Francisco from Incontinence, Ind. His sarcastic redhead (and bloodsucking) girlfriend, Jody, brings him into the fold of the undead ("I wanted us to be together," she says). Tommy, understandably, has mixed feelings; vampirism has its perks (you can turn to mist, live forever and the sex is awesome), but sunlight is death and blood hunger makes you do some pretty foul things. Also, the duo is hunted by Elijah, the ancient vampire who "turned" Jody and wants her back, and a band of Safeway stock boys/amateur vampire hunters known as the Animals (with whom pre-dark side Tommy once rolled). With the assistance of their devoted minion, goth girl Abby Normal, whose hilarious diary entries form part of the narrative, Tommy and Jody evade their pursuers, feeding at night and conking out at dawn, all the while learning how vampirism complicates love. Moore writes with the jittery energy of a brilliant, charming class clown, mixing sex and gore and a potty mouth with a goofy-sweet sensibility to deliver laughs on nearly every page. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A raunchy slapstick comedy of young vampires in love, Moore's sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends (1995) features Tommy and Jody trying to make an undeath for themselves after Jody kills her lover/food source, Tommy, and turns him into a vampire. They have a few problems-like finding a new food source (Chet the giant cat might not have been a good idea), recruiting minions to help them when the sun is up, and dealing with a homicidal elder vampire. There is also a blue-skinned mercenary Las Vegas prostitute, the drug-crazed band of stoners with whom Tommy used to work, the Emperor of San Francisco, and a tough-talking but hopelessly romantic and perky Goth girl named Abby Normal who sees the vampire Flood (19-year-old Tommy) as her Dark Master. Moore is in top form, and this reviewer laughed all the way through this page-turner. Enthusiastically recommended for all adult fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/06.]-Ken St. Andre, Phoenix P.L. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The biology and ethics of vampirism are revealed with frat-house gusto in Moore's fitfully entertaining tenth novel, a sequel to his 1995 romp, Bloodsucking Fiends. We're back in San Francisco, where wannabe writer C. Thomas (Tommy) Flood has gone all the way, so to speak, with his gorgeous girlfriend Jody Stroud, and joined her among the undead. The novel records their encounters with others, including Tommy's fellow Safeway employees ("the Animals"), one of whom-born-again Clint-hopes to save Tommy from the cool new life the fledgling vampire enjoys (though Tommy does have issues with "the foul, dead, blood-drinking part"). There are also variously affable and/or threatening figures, such as the homeless Emperor of San Francisco (based on a real historical character), street person William and his "huge cat" Chet, new-in-town teens Jared White Wolf and Abby Normal, a hooker named Blue (who is, in fact, painted that very color) and, hovering ominously (often upside-down) in the background, Jody's mentor (i.e., the guy who bit her first), centuries-old Elijah Ben Sapir, who "had begun this adventure thinking himself the puppet-master, now he was all entangled in the strings." This is a novel that asks the question, "What's the point of being immortal if we have to floss?" Moore handles its goofier-than-thou plot adroitly, springing a droll half-surprise at The Very End. Still, it's basically a collection of straight lines and zingers. Moore's fans won't mind much, because Tommy is as engaging as he is clueless, and his willing "minion" Abby possesses a winning combination of cheerleader pizzazz and Goth-inflected Dark Side grunge. Think of a collaboration among Anne Rice, S.J. Perelmanand Pedro Almod-var. In other words, Moore in the usual vein (jugular, that is).

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Read a Sample Chapter

You Suck

William Morrow

Chapter One

"You bitch, you killed me! You suck!"

Tommy had just awakened for the first time as a vampire. He was nineteen, thin, and had spent his entire life between states of amazement and confusion.

"I wanted us to be together." Jody: pale, pretty, long red hair hanging in her face, cute swoop of a nose in search of a lost spray of freckles, a big lipstick-smeared grin. She'd only been undead herself for a couple of months, and was still learning to be spooky.

"Yeah, that's why you spent the night with him." Tommy pointed across the loft to the life-sized bronze statue of a man in a tattered suit. Inside the bronze shell was the ancient vampire who had turned Jody. Another bronze of Jody stood next to him. When the two of them had gone out at sunrise, into the sleep of the dead, Tommy had taken them to the sculptors who lived on the ground floor of his building and had the vampires bronzed. He'd thought it would give him time to think of what to do, and keep Jody from running off with the old vampire. Tommy's mistake had been drilling ear holes in Jody's sculpture so she could hear him. Somehow, during the night, before the bronzing, the old vampire had taught her to turn to mist, and she'd streamed out of the ear holes into the room, and-well-here they were: dead, in love, and angry.

"I needed toknow about what I am, Tommy. Who else was going to tell me if not him?"

"Yeah, but you should have asked me before you did this," Tommy said. "You shouldn't just kill a guy without asking. It's inconsiderate." Tommy was from Indiana, and his mother had raised him to have good manners and to be considerate of other people's feelings.

"You had sex with me while I was unconscious," Jody said.

"That's not the same," Tommy said. "I was just being friendly, like when you put a quarter in someone else's parking meter when they aren't there-you know they appreciate it later, even if they don't thank you personally."

"Yeah, wait until you go out in your jammies and wake up all sticky in a cheerleader outfit and see how grateful you are. You know, Tommy, when I'm out, technically, I'm dead. Guess what that makes you?"

"Well-uh-yeah, but you're not even human. You're just some foul dead thing." Tommy immediately regretted saying it. It was hurtful and mean, and although Jody was, indeed, dead, he didn't find her foul at all-in fact, he was pretty sure he was in love with her, he was just a little embarrassed about the whole necrophilia/cheerleader thing. Back in the Midwest people didn't mention that sort of thing unless a dog dug up a pom-pom in some guy's backyard and the police eventually discovered the whole human pyramid buried under the swing set.

Jody sniffled, completely for effect. Actually she was relieved that Tommy was now on the defensive. "Well, welcome to the Foul, Dead Thing Club, Mr. Flood."

"Yeah, you drank my blood," Tommy said. "A lot."

Damn, she should have pretended to cry. "You let me."

"Again, being considerate," Tommy said. He stood up and shrugged.

"You just let me because of the sex."

"That's not true, it was because you needed me." He was lying, it was because of the sex.

"Yes, I did," Jody said. "I still do." She held her arms out to him. "I really do."

He walked into her arms and held her. She felt amazing to him, even more amazing than she had before. It was as if his nerves had been dialed up to eleven. "Okay, it was because of the sex."

Great, she thought, in control once again. She kissed his neck. "How do you feel about it now?"

"Maybe in a minute, I'm starving." He let go of her and stormed across the loft to the kitchen, where he pulled a burrito out of the freezer, threw it into the microwave, and hit the button, all in one smooth motion.

"You don't want to eat that," Jody said.

"Nonsense, it smells great. It's like every little bean and pork piece is sending out its own delicious miasma of flavor vapor." Tommy used words like "miasma" because he wanted to be a writer. That's why he'd come to San Francisco in the first place-to take life in big bites and write about it. Oh, and to find a girlfriend.

"Put the burrito down, and back away, Tommy," Jody said. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"Ha, that's cute." He took a big bite and grinned at her as he chewed.

Five minutes later, because she felt responsible, Jody was helping him clean bits of masticated burrito off the kitchen wall and the front of the refrigerator. "It's like every bean was storming the gates of repressive digestion to escape."

"Yeah, well, being refried will do that to you," Jody said, stroking his hair. "You okay?"

"I'm starving. I need to eat."

"Not so much eat," Jody said.

"Oh my God! It's the hunger. I feel like my insides are caving in on themselves. You should have told me about this."

She knew how he felt-actually, she had felt worse when it happened to her. At least he knew what was happening to him. "Yeah, sweetie, we're going to have to make a few adjustments."

"Well, what do I do? What did you do?"

"I mostly fed off of you, remember?"

"You should have thought this through before you killed me. I'm fucked."

"We're fucked. Together. Like Romeo and Juliet, only we get to be in a sequel. Very literary, Tommy."

"Oh, that's a comfort. I can't believe you just killed me like that."

"And turned you into a superbeing, thank you very much."

"Oh, crap, there's burrito spooge all over my new sneakers."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from You Suck by Christopher Moore Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Moore. Excerpted by permission.
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