[ARC Review] Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things by Margie Fuston
Format: eARC
eARC provided by: Margaret K. McElderry Book/Simon & Schuster via Edelweiss
--------------------
Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things by Margie Fuston is an emotionally charged story about love, loss, and living even when life gets hard.
Victoria and her dad consider themselves vampire connoisseurs. They’ve seen all the vampire moves, watched every season of every vampire tv show, debated on if they’d rather be a vampire or werewolf. Her mother and sister don’t understand - can’t understand - their obsession, so when Victoria’s dad is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the doctors give him months to live, she knows she’s the only one who can save him by finding a vampire and turning her dad. Reuniting with her childhood best friend Henry, Victoria takes the trip she and her dad had always planned to take: a week in New Orleans, a city rife with vampire legends. With her singular goal of finding a vampire to save her dad’s life, Victoria sets out on a journey that will turn out to be emotional, life-affirming, and altogether not what she had planned.
Based just on the book description, I knew Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things was going to be an emotional journey. I immediately felt Victoria’s pain and her disconnect. I thought she was a very realistic teenager; I, too, would have pulled away and shut myself up emotionally if put in the same situation. What I didn’t expect from the book was the interweaving of paranormal and real-world elements. I don’t know how I feel about vampires being real in this story; I loved the journey Victoria went on, but I think I would’ve loved and appreciated the journey and the ending more if vampires had remained a myth and Victoria had to instead rely on faith in herself, her friends, and her family to get her through her journey. Despite the title, making vampires real didn’t actually do anything to the story for me. I do think Fuston wrote an incredible story for Victoria; the emotional wreck that was this lost, mourning teenage girl was tangible on the page. I loved how every other character pulled Victoria out of herself, especially when she wanted to disconnect, forcing her to face a lot of her past heartaches and her current loss. Losing a parent is hard, and Fuston did a wonderful job at writing that character full of anger, sadness, emptiness, and desperation. I was initially sceptical of a love triangle among so much pain and fear, but it was actually done really well, forcing Victoria to feel things she didn’t want to acknowledge at the time. I definitely knew who I wanted Victoria to end up with, and I’m glad things went the way they did. And, despite the heartbreak and heartache, Fuston left readers with a kernel of hope and happiness and I think Victoria is going to be just fine even after all she went through.
Overall, Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things was a well-written story that consistently pulled at my emotions while I hoped, loved, and lived right alongside Victoria.
.png)
