Contemporary

Book Review: “Blood Stain” by Linda Sejic

Somewhere in the asscrack of the mediterranean…

Blood Stain: Volume #1 by Linda Sejic

Blood Stain by Linda Sejic

COMIC: Blood Stain (Volumes 1 – 4)

LENGTH: 512 pages (all together)

GENRES: Horror, Contemporary Fiction, Graphic Novel, Fiction

PUBLISHER: Image – Top Cow

RELEASE DATE: 13 April 2016

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Elliot Torres is kind of in a rough patch. With no career, a seemingly useless chemistry degree, and a near pathological addiction to online gaming, Elly needs something in her life to go right especially when her family asks her to start pitching in with the rent.

Enter Doctor Vlad Stein. After a series of failed part time jobs, Elly desperately answers Dr. Stein’s ancient classified ad: ASSISTANT NEEDED. But when the doctor ~who, according to rumor, is the creepiest mad scientist in human history demands an in-person job trial at his spooky lab, making ends meet might be the least of Elly’s worries. Or maybe she’s been playing too much survival horror.

Originally published on DeviantArt as a bit webcomic, and even adapted by fans into a YouTube audio drama, this is the first print collection of the hilarious series from rising star writer/artist LINDA SEJIC (Tales of Honor, Wildfire).

My Review

“I heard from a friend of a friend… that that guy… is a mad scientist!”

I’ve been kind of getting into graphic novels and webcomics recently, so when this came up on my feed it looked right up my alley. Dark, mad scientist aesthetic? Comedy-horror? Yes, please!

Alas, it just… didn’t live up to my expectations. A huge part of said anticipating was, of course, my fault, but I still had a different idea as to what kind of graphic novel Blood Stain was, as opposed to what it ended up being.

But let’s start off with what I liked about it…

Pros

  • The characters ▼

The characters were the star of the show here. (As they should – they’re characters! – but whatever.) Out of everything in these graphic novels, the cast was what shone the brightest. Particularly our leading lady, Elliot Torres.

Elliot Torres is a recent chemistry graduate who’s currently experiencing the first big hurdle of a young adult – finding and keeping down a job. As someone who’s been in her situation before (rather recently, in fact) she was extremely relatable. She’s also a spunky nerd who loves video games, which also helped me like her – as I too am a spunky nerd who loves video games. I also loved how her family (aka: her motivation) is always first in her mind, and how much she throws herself into everything she does, so as to help them out.

Vlad Stein – accidently christened “Blood Stain” by Elliot, hence the title – is our protagonist’s new workaholic, socially awkward boss. And no, sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but despite his name, he isn’t a vampire. He’s a bit of a mad scientist though… At least, he has the aesthetic for it. I know, I know, I was a little disappointed as well (particularly since the covers and synopsis seem to imply supernatural connotations that don’t seem to exist). He was an okay character, one that I neither like nor dislike.

I really liked Serge though. He seems a bit out of place at first – like seriously, why is he here? But he’s a difficult character not to like, and I fell hard and fast. His purpose also becomes clear somewhat quickly in the story, which also helps. He worked as an excellent straight man to balance out Vlad’s and Elliot’s different kinds of weirdness.

  • The art ▼

The art is so good, guys. And the character designs were awesome. I also really liked the way that Sejic draws environments and backgrounds.

I also really liked how the panels would sometimes just change fantastically for seemingly no reason (at first). Elliot’s hyperactive imagination and weird dreams were always hilarious to witness.

Cons

  • The dialogue▼

I didn’t really like the dialogue at first. It felt very clunky to me. The conversations between characters didn’t always come off as natural, or how people talk at all. It did improve a little bit as the story went on, though.

  • The genre ▼

As for the genre… Contemporary fiction isn’t bad or anything like that, it’s just not my preference. But the covers of these graphic novels kind of like to you, and the summary is vague enough that certain things… might be inferred.

For example, I was sure Vlad was gonna be a vampire or something, and that there’d be other subtle supernatural stuff hanging around in the background. But. No dice. This is simply a very non-supernatural, slice-of-life comedy.

Final Thoughts

Blood Stain by Linda Sejic is pretty fun so far, if you like contemporary, dark comedy. Its illustrations are also beautiful – Sejic is really a talented artist.

This might also be a good comic to curl up on the couch with during October. Though it’s not supernatural, and not quite a horror, it still has a dark aesthetic perfect for spooky season.

As always, thank you so much for reading, and have an excellent day/night!

See ya ~Mar

MY LINKS:
Goodreads
Instagram

Book Review: When Life Gives You Vampires (Slaying It) • Gloria Duke

Single. Curvy. Vampire.

When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke

About This Book

Title & Author: When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke

Length: 336 pages

Genres: Romance, Supernatural, Comedy

Publication: Sourcebooks Casablanca [October 4, 2022]

Book Description

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

Tristan hadn’t meant to harm Lily – it’s against vampire law – but now that she’s here, they need to team up to save both their hides. They strike an uneasy truce, fending off other vampires, Lily’s work-rival-turned-slayer, and her mother’s tone-deaf romance and fitness advice… all while Lily faces down her insecurities about the fact that she lives in a diet-obsessed world with a body that will never age, never die, and never change.

Falling for her maddeningly gorgeous sire? Easy. Surviving an ancient vampire Master determined to see her twice-dead? Piece of cake. But can Lily ever learn to love the woman she’ll be forever more?

My Review

Star Rating: 🦇🦇🦇 • 3 / 5 vampire bats

I swear, this whole vampire thing is just one giant kick in the tits after another. Every time I turn around, there’s a new layer of s*** getting piled onto the s*** cake.

This book was fun. That’s really the whole long and short of it, honestly. It was a funny, spicy, Halloween-y read, and relatively light-hearted. I don’t usually read contemporary romance, even when there’s magic stuff going on, and this book kind of reminded me why, unfortunately.(They’re just not my thing, is all.) But I didn’t not like it, so there’s that!

The best part of the book by far was the characters. Our protagonist – Lily Baines 🌺🖋️ – was, in particular, a narrating gem. For the most part. (We’ll get to that.) She’s sassy, funny, and she doesn’t take crap from anyone. But she’s also a nervous, self-conscious, and emotionally vulnerable young woman. A relatively well-rounded character overall, which is what I like to see.

Tristan Newberry 🖋️📖, the love interest, as well as the vampire that sired Lily, is also total eye candy. Or is it word candy, since it’s a book? Whatever, regardless, he was pretty hot, and he had a rather kind personality, if a bit old-fashioned. But don’t worry – Lily sets him straight. I also adored how he absolutely loved Lily, inside and out, though it took her a bit to accept that. Oh, and he also writes romance novels. Sexy!

“Well,” I say – and I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, but here goes: “What did the sparkly vampires do for blood?”

Lily’s friend Cat was also great; she and Lily played off of one another very well, and I loved how they attempted to use Twilight to help Lily figure out her new unlife. The side characters were also decent, though I found them to be pretty underdeveloped.

Annnd, now it’s time for some of the cons…

Okay, so… I didn’t really like some aspects of Lily’s narration. She’d say stuff like “Obvi” a lot, which I’ve never heard someone say aloud, only in like chat messages or shorthand. And the worst part is that she didn’t say it either – because she really didn’t. Oh no, this particularly sucked (no pun intended) because it was on her narration, and like, in her thoughts and stuff. All the time. And it wasn’t just this one non-word, no, she used a lot of Internet speech the same way. And it was pretty friggin annoying.

The other thing that I didn’t like, was that Lily would say that something would happen, and then say something (in the narration, not the dialogue) along the lines of: “Yeah we did this/talked about this, but it was kind of boring and you don’t care, so I’ll give you the Cliff Notes “ Seriously? Show-don’t-tell is one of the cardinal rules of writing, and instead of showing how these characters are interacting and developing through dialogue – ya know, naturally? – you’re just gonna give the scene to us in bullet points?!? What the heck?!

Regarding everything else, it was pretty average. The plot was slightly meh, and the villains and minor characters were soggy pieces of toast. And very stereotypical. Oh, and this is actually another con, but I hate it when the two romantic leads don’t friggin communicate. It’s tasteless, easy, and unnecessary drama.

But yeah, even though I thought this book was mostly average, a lot of the lines of dialogue and the descriptions were really funny. And it was great seeing Lily grow as a character and finally learn to accept and love herself. (Spoilers…?) And Tristan was the (mostly) perfect man, which is always yummy to read about. (Also, he wasn’t abusive like 90% of the other vampires in books! Yay, I guess?) Also, there are a few trigger warnings regarding body image, fatphobia, mental health, and other stuff, so check out all of the TW’s to make sure it’s something okay for you to read.

Anyway, here’s my review for When Life Gives You Vampires. Like I said, it was a fun, easy little romp. If you like contemporary rom-coms with a splash of supernatural, this one’s for you.

Thank you to everyone for tuning in, and have a great day/night! Have you read this book? Did you enjoy it? What are your favorite contemporary romances? Vampire books?

Goodreads
Instagram
Twitter