Whitney Gardner

“LOL funny.” –Girls Life A Huffington Post Best Children’s Book of 2018 A middle schooler comes head-to-head with his vampire slayer crush in this laugh-out-loud funny graphic novel that’s a perfect coming-of-age story for anyone who’s ever felt too young, too small, or too average. It’s the beginning of the new school year and AJ feels like everyone is changing but him. He hasn’t grown or had any exciting summer adventures like his best friends have. He even has the same crush he’s harbored for years. So AJ decides to take matters into his own hands. But how could a girl like Nia Winters ever like plain vanilla AJ when she only has eyes for vampires? When AJ and Nia are paired up for a group project on Transylvania, it may be AJ’s chance to win over Nia’s affection by dressing up like the vamp of her dreams. And soon enough he’s got more of Nia’s attention than he bargained for when he learns she’s a slayer. Now AJ has to worry about self-preservation while also trying to save everyone he cares about from a real-life threat lurking in the shadows of Spoons Middle School.

Fake Blood

Patrick Book

Too much ‘Twilight’ influence! Vampires don’t sparkle!

Izza

Khloe Grotting

This was SO cute!! It’s cheesy but it still made me laugh out loud. The art style is also amazing and overall I had a fun time reading it!!

Samantha Seeman

This actually did not go the way that I thought it would originally! To be fair though, I didn’t read the description before reading it, I kind of just saw it on a few Booktube videos and added it to my TBR. It is a story about a boy (Aj) who is trying to impress a girl in his class. She just so happens to be obsessed with vampires, and so his mission throughout the book is to transition into a vampire (or at least make her believe he is one). It reminded me a lot of Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell because in Fangirl, the main character is obsessed with a book series that is very very similar to Harry Potter. In Fake Blood, there is a book called “Moonlight” that Aj reads and uses in his mission to become a vampire. Throughout the story, he references scenes in the book, which oddly seem very similar to Twilight (by Stephenie Meyer). I really loved Aj’s sister, she was funny and the most realistic character (in my opinion). You can kind of guess what is going to happen while you are reading, though I didn’t want to believe it at first. It was super cute though, and I really loved the big full pages of illustration. The drawing style and palette were really nice too.

b.andherbooks

AJ, a bookworm, wallflower 6th grader, decides to pretend he's a vampire in order to impress his vampire-obsessed crush. As it turns out Mia is a slayer, and she totally buys that AJ's a creature of the night.

With cute illustrations and a fairly silly plot, this was a fun graphic novel. I question it being shelved in my library's Children's Graphic Novels, as some of the themes are a little mature and it is kind of scary and violent when Mia decides to kill AJ. There's also a kidnapping.

SPOILERS

I was a bit unclear whether the book would actually turn out to be supernatural (it is), and I was a little concerned Mia only thought she was a slayer because of "reading too many books and watching too many movies." With some of the things I've been seeing in the news about kids thinking they are "destined" to murder other kids, I was a bit squeamish with this plot line. Mia ultimately decides she "isn't read to kill" anyone, but there is not a great explanation about where Mia got the information she was a slayer.

So, ultimately fun, but not one of my favorites.

Mathieu Schwab

Melissa Railey

Moth

Nora 

Maria Kais

A middle schooler comes head-to-head with his vampire slayer crush in this laugh-out-loud funny graphic novel that’s a perfect coming-of-age story for anyone who’s ever felt too young, too small, or too average. It’s the beginning of the new school year and AJ feels like everyone is changing but him. He hasn’t grown or had any exciting summer adventures like his best friends have. He even has the same crush he’s harbored for years. So AJ decides to take matters into his own hands. But how could a girl like Nia Winters ever like plain vanilla AJ when she only has eyes for vampires? When AJ and Nia are paired up for a group project on Transylvania, it may be AJ’s chance to win over Nia’s affection by dressing up like the vamp of her dreams. And soon enough he’s got more of Nia’s attention than he bargained for when he learns she’s a slayer. Now AJ has to worry about self-preservation while also trying to save everyone he cares about from a real-life threat lurking in the shadows of Spoons Middle School.

Fake Blood

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