Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

​    Most vampire fiction gets vampires wrong. Or at least, it creates vampires I don’t care for or about, glamorous nihilists drunk on decadence or brooding forever-teens. And so, it’s always a pleasure and sometimes an event when someone gets vampires right. And this book came tantalizingly close.
    Its protagonist, Lydia, a 23-year-old woman freshly on her own after spending all of her life with an oppressive and mean mother, it trying to find her way in the world and, mostly, just trying to eat. The title…it’s apt.
     Lydia’s mom is a self-loathing vampire, a quality she tried to instill in her daughter, referring to themselves as demons, unworthy, etc. There’s no logical explanation to how her mother was able to get pregnant with her (by a regular, non-vampire father) and have a child and then turn the child into a vampire as a baby and have her grow to adulthood…that’s just kinda there for you to suspend your disbelief and go along with. But now that Lydia’s 23, she is done growing, she just needs blood to sustain her life.
     The thing is…her mother raised her on animal blood they’d get from a local butcher, but now that avenue is closed, and Lydia can’t line up a new supply and so she’s hungry. Terribly, terribly hungry.
    She’s also trying to set up a new life for herself, by renting an art studio she also sleeps in, making new friends in the building and working an internship at a trendy gallery with a creep for an owner.
     So, in a way it’s a coming-of-age story too. An aspect that easily overshadows the vampire thing. Lamentably so, because reading about a character with a very unusual set of personal challenges is considerably more interesting than reading about a Gen Z artist trying to make her way through life. The latter is practically New Adult or at least very hipstery and the entire production is certainly very hip, but it stretches itself thin with insubstantiality, much like Lydia’s attempts at abetting her appetites with powdered blood.
     This would have made a dynamic novella, as a novel, even a relatively short one, it leaves something to be desired. There’s too much concentration on the awkward romantic subplot with an awkward romantic lead who speaks in unfinished sentences. There’s a MeToo workplace situation nod. But overall, the novel seems to skirt its most fascinating aspects in favor of the quotidian ones. It’s a nicely written book, especially for a debut, original and has a great ending, but it’s also young in slightly emo, Twilight generation way. So, something of a mixed bag, but at least a quick read. Thanks Netgalley.