You Suck: A Love Story

I'm not proud to say this: I enjoyed this book. It was a last-minute purchase at the Seattle airport before we left for Hawaii. Doolies was buying her usual mix of informative and trashy magazines, and I was browsing the book section. I brought a few nonfiction books and Neal Stephenson's second book in the Baroque cycle. Although I wanted to get started on that book (I'm about halfway through it now), I opted for light reading for the plane ride. There's something about bubblegum novels that makes air travel tolerable.

I went with this book. There were a bunch of Moore novels on the wall, and I realized I had never heard of Moore. This was his newest and the red star (where they usually include book awards) won me over: "Now with More Moore!" I figured anything that cheesy must be good. The publisher colored the top, bottom, and side edges of the pages red to signify blood. It reminded me of books from my childhood where they took the time to add a splash of (usually faded) color to the edges of the hardcover book.

The book was a fun, easy read as it took only a handful of hours to finish. I was done on the second or third day of our vacation. It is a "love" story about two new vampires. It took me a while to figure this out, but the book is a continuation of the story and characters in one of Moore's older book. You don't need to (and I didn't) read that older book to enjoy this trashy novel.

I'm a big fan of "world building," where the author creates a set of rules for an alternative universe. In Fantasy Novels the rules usually revolve around the magic system. In Vampire Novels the rules revolve around what it means to be a vampire, with all of the vampire's advantages and disadvantages. This book was no different and provided a few minor twists to the usual vampire genre (such as the many Anne Rice novels I read).

What really dragged me in was a character that Moore introduced about halfway through the novel, a 16-year old goth chick who becomes the vampires' minion. Moore used what read like blog entries to represent her point of view. Her writing was overly overcaffeinated, highly intelligent, and completely entertaining. Moore managed to channel her thoughts with amazing accuracy--at least thoughts I would imagine she has. (It should go without saying that although she was highly entertaining, her thoughts and actions were also highly improbable, and likely not that of a 16-year old, but a 51-year old man trying to channel a 16-year old.) It was worth reading the rest of the book just for her chapters.

When eating dinner at that strange restaurant on Thursday, I saw someone else reading this book. I caught the red edges of the pages and I had my suspicions. When we went to order dessert, I passed by and peeked at the cover and saw the title. The person reading it was a 16-year old girl: I found the target audience for the novel. I'm not sure what it says about me that I also enjoyed it.

While I doubt I will read through many more Moore (heh heh) vampire books, it was a good purchase as it provided a nice easy transition into the vacationing mindset. Moore has a reputation as an absurdist in the line of Vonnegut. While I didn't see it in this novel, I am willing to check out some of his other attempts. If nothing else, I imagine they'll be highly entertaining and help me survive more airplane rides.