First Published: 2010
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: “Chloe smiled at me in maths today, but this made my fangs come out so I couldn’t smile back. If only I could express my true feelings for her. I Might write a poem.”
Nigel Mullet is just your average, everyday vampire. Transformed at the awkward age of fifteen, he will remain this age forever, being forced to spend eternity coping with acne, a breaking voice, and ineptitude with girls.
In this, his brilliantly funny diary, Nigel chronicles his increasingly desperate attempts to be noticed by the love of his life, Chloe, the constant mortification caused by his vampire parents (it’s so embarrassing when they try and bite your friends), and how unfair everything feels when you’ve been undead for over eighty years and you’ve never had a girlfriend.
Forced to hang out with the Goths and emo kids in an effort to blend in, and constantly battling his confusing desire to sink his fangs into Chloe’s neck, will Nigel ever get his girl?
The Review: Aimed at a younger market this is almost like the vampire equivalent of the Diary of Adrian Mole but without the edge. The pubescent and societal wonders that Adrian Mole brought to the world (God, was it really 1982) seem lost within the vampiric archetype - or perhaps it is just that the years have caught up with me?
That is not to say that it isn’t worthwhile. Nigel may be a wimpy vampire whose powers have failed to emerge (no super strength, vampiric beauty, speed or, in fact, self-sufficient hunting skills) but he is a proper undead vampire who drinks blood. Less a sideward look at the world around us and more a squint at some of the vampire genre’s recent, more popularist, trends. In possibly the funniest moment in the book he contemplates the cons of stalking one’s mortal love and watching her sleep.
For the market it is aimed at it will prove a hit, the book is a breeze to read with its diary format and plenty of Dahl-a-like illustrations. If it has a failing it is in the fact that it fails to extend to a wider (age range of) audience in the way it might of.
5 out of 10.
* review, before ammendments, first published on Amazon UK
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