Melanie
Written on Oct 5, 2018
Review originally posted at BooksOfMyHeart.net.
Ever since I listened to my first C.T.Phipps book, The Rules of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga #1), I’ve quickly come to love Phipps’ humor. I’m truthfully really surprised I haven’t tried this book before now, since I have a love of vampires. This is a great story about an African American vampire who has more than his fair share of bumps in the road. Peter Stone lives in a trailer and works in a convenience store (to which the author used to add in a great Clerks reference).
Peter learns that a newly turned vampire is in the store bathroom. With the lack of the new vamp’s maker, Peter decides he needs to take her to his maker to find out what to do. Problem is, Peter was banished from his maker’s territory of New Detroit. He also learns that this new vamp, Melissa, was part of a vampire hate group called The Human Rights League, which makes things a little weird for someone who is now a vampire. So Peter and his friends must now fight this hate group, which is being manipulated by a vampire, no less.
This is a funny story and everything I expected from C.T. Phipps. There are a ton of pop culture references, including almost every vampire one known to man. From Nosferatus, to Count von Count, to Twilight, to Blacula (of course), and everything in between. There are also the more nerdy references, which I’m used to in a Phipps’ book, because Peter’s servant, David, watches way too many movies, TV and video games. Movie references like Highlander, The Black Adder and Looney Tunes (just to name a few, because I can’t remember them all).
“Which hate group did you belong to?” David asked, showing a complete and admittedly hilarious lack of tact.
“The Human Rights League isn’t a hate group,” Melissa said. “It’s not even anti-vampire, it’s pro—”
“Human?” I finished for her.
Melissa blinked. “Oh Jesus, I never even noticed that before. It is a hate group, isn’t it?”
Narration
This is my first time listening to a book by Cary Hite. I thought he did a good job with the different voices. I didn’t love them all, but I did enjoy the main characters. I thought that Thoth, Peter’s creator, had a great Haitian/Creole accent. I didn’t mind the women’s voices. I thought he did a great job with pace and tone. I really thought he did a great job bringing out the humor in the dialogue.
**Audioook was provided to me by the author. This review is my opinion and was not requested or provoked in anyway by the author.