You Suck: A Love Story

"You bitch, you killed me. You suck!"Being dead sucks. Make that being undead sucks. Literally. Just ask Thomas C. Flood. Waking up after a fantastic night unlike anything he's ever experienced, he discovers that his girlfriend, Jody—the woman of his dreams—is a vampire. And surprise! Now he's one, too.For some couples, the whole biting-and-blood thing would have been a deal breaker. But Tommy and Jody are in love, and they vow to work through their issues. Like how much Jody should teach Tommy about his new superpowers (and how much he needs to learn on his own). Plus there's Tommy's cute new minion, sixteen-year-old goth girl Abby Normal. (Well, someone has to run errands during daylight hours!)Making the relationship work, however, is the least of Jody and Tommy's problems. Word has it that the vampire who nibbled on Jody wasn't supposed to be recruiting any new members into the club. Even worse, Tommy's erstwhile turkey-bowling pals are out to get him, at the urging of a blue-dyed Las Vegas call girl named (duh) Blue. And that really sucks.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Moore's latest (after 2006's A Dirty Job) is a cheerfully perverse, gut-busting tale of young vampires in love. Nineteen-year-old Tommy is a bewildered hipster recently relocated to San Francisco from Incontinence, Ind. His sarcastic redhead (and bloodsucking) girlfriend, Jody, brings him into the fold of the undead ("I wanted us to be together," she says). Tommy, understandably, has mixed feelings; vampirism has its perks (you can turn to mist, live forever and the sex is awesome), but sunlight is death and blood hunger makes you do some pretty foul things. Also, the duo is hunted by Elijah, the ancient vampire who "turned" Jody and wants her back, and a band of Safeway stock boys/amateur vampire hunters known as the Animals (with whom pre–dark side Tommy once rolled). With the assistance of their devoted minion, goth girl Abby Normal, whose hilarious diary entries form part of the narrative, Tommy and Jody evade their pursuers, feeding at night and conking out at dawn, all the while learning how vampirism complicates love. Moore writes with the jittery energy of a brilliant, charming class clown, mixing sex and gore and a potty mouth with a goofy-sweet sensibility to deliver laughs on nearly every page. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Moore revives the stars of his last "love story," Bloodsucking Fiends (1995)--literally. Redheaded stunner--and vampire--Jody had been sealed in a bronze body cast by her lover C. Thomas Flood. She escaped, though, because Tommy drilled ear holes so she could hear his heartsick regrets. She used her vampire powers to go all misty, drift out of the cast, rematerialize, and "turn" Tommy, who has just waked as a vampire as our story opens. "You bitch, you killed me!" he remonstrates, "You suck!" Of course, and, now, so must he, but not before some "hot monkey love," which greatly reconciles the 19-year-old to his fate. The lovers must go on the lam, however, since they promised the two San Francisco cops hip to them to get out of town immediately. Tommy finds a minion in morbid but perky teenager Abby Normal, who fills the bill handily and writes her doings up in valley-girl-teenybopper-hip-hop slang in her journal, which Moore excerpts throughout. Good thing Abby's so effective, too, since per usual in Moore's dark-fantasy lampoons, a small army is soon in pursuit of Jody and Tommy. Happy endings for pretty much everybody conclude Moore's hilarious mockery of the pursuit of the appetites. Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

People

“A vampire comedy that’s witty, bright and funny.”

Kirkus Reviews

“Think of a collaboration among Anne Rice, S.J. Perelman and Pedro Almodóvar.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[A] cheerfully perverse, gut-busting tale...deliver[s] laughs on nearly every page.”

USA Today

“A laugh-a-page novel that’s raunchy and irreverent.”

Rocky Mountain News

“Fun, funny and just a little bit gross -- what more could anyone ask? Grade: A”

Buffalo News

“Christopher Moore mines a comic gold mine, deftly skewering the conceits of the vampire genre with precision and wit.”

From the Back Cover

"You bitch, you killed me. You suck!"Being dead sucks. Make that being undead sucks. Literally. Just ask Thomas C. Flood. Waking up after a fantastic night unlike anything he's ever experienced, he discovers that his girlfriend, Jody—the woman of his dreams—is a vampire. And surprise! Now he's one, too.For some couples, the whole biting-and-blood thing would have been a deal breaker. But Tommy and Jody are in love, and they vow to work through their issues. Like how much Jody should teach Tommy about his new superpowers (and how much he needs to learn on his own). Plus there's Tommy's cute new minion, sixteen-year-old goth girl Abby Normal. (Well, someone has to run errands during daylight hours!)Making the relationship work, however, is the least of Jody and Tommy's problems. Word has it that the vampire who nibbled on Jody wasn't supposed to be recruiting any new members into the club. Even worse, Tommy's erstwhile turkey-bowling pals are out to get him, at the urging of a blue-dyed Las Vegas call girl named (duh) Blue. And that really sucks.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

You SuckA Love Story By Christopher MooreWilliam MorrowCopyright © 2007 Christopher MooreAll right reserved.ISBN: 978-0-06-059029-1Chapter OneGet Over It, a Lot of People Are Dead "You bitch, you killed me! You suck!" Tommy had just awakened for the first time as a vampire. He was nineteen, thin, and had spent his entire life between states of amazement and confusion. "I wanted us to be together." Jody: pale, pretty, long red hair hanging in her face, cute swoop of a nose in search of a lost spray of freckles, a big lipstick-smeared grin. She'd only been undead herself for a couple of months, and was still learning to be spooky. "Yeah, that's why you spent the night with him." Tommy pointed across the loft to the life-sized bronze statue of a man in a tattered suit. Inside the bronze shell was the ancient vampire who had turned Jody. Another bronze of Jody stood next to him. When the two of them had gone out at sunrise, into the sleep of the dead, Tommy had taken them to the sculptors who lived on the ground floor of his building and had the vampires bronzed. He'd thought it would give him time to think of what to do, and keep Jody from running off with the old vampire. Tommy's mistake had been drilling ear holes in Jody's sculpture so she could hear him. Somehow, during the night, before the bronzing, the old vampire had taught her to turn to mist, and she'd streamed out of the ear holes into the room, and-well-here they were: dead, in love, and angry. "I needed to know about what I am, Tommy. Who else was going to tell me if not him?" "Yeah, but you should have asked me before you did this," Tommy said. "You shouldn't just kill a guy without asking. It's inconsiderate." Tommy was from Indiana, and his mother had raised him to have good manners and to be considerate of other people's feelings. "You had sex with me while I was unconscious," Jody said. "That's not the same," Tommy said. "I was just being friendly, like when you put a quarter in someone else's parking meter when they aren't there-you know they appreciate it later, even if they don't thank you personally." "Yeah, wait until you go out in your jammies and wake up all sticky in a cheerleader outfit and see how grateful you are. You know, Tommy, when I'm out, technically, I'm dead. Guess what that makes you?" "Well-uh-yeah, but you're not even human. You're just some foul dead thing." Tommy immediately regretted saying it. It was hurtful and mean, and although Jody was, indeed, dead, he didn't find her foul at all-in fact, he was pretty sure he was in love with her, he was just a little embarrassed about the whole necrophilia/cheerleader thing. Back in the Midwest people didn't mention that sort of thing unless a dog dug up a pom-pom in some guy's backyard and the police eventually discovered the whole human pyramid buried under the swing set. Jody sniffled, completely for effect. Actually she was relieved that Tommy was now on the defensive. "Well, welcome to the Foul, Dead Thing Club, Mr. Flood." "Yeah, you drank my blood," Tommy said. "A lot." Damn, she should have pretended to cry. "You let me." "Again, being considerate," Tommy said. He stood up and shrugged. "You just let me because of the sex." "That's not true, it was because you needed me." He was lying, it was because of the sex. "Yes, I did," Jody said. "I still do." She held her arms out to him. "I really do." He walked into her arms and held her. She felt amazing to him, even more amazing than she had before. It was as if his nerves had been dialed up to eleven. "Okay, it was because of the sex." Great, she thought, in control once again. She kissed his neck. "How do you feel about it now?" "Maybe in a minute, I'm starving." He let go of her and stormed across the loft to the kitchen, where he pulled a burrito out of the freezer, threw it into the microwave, and hit the button, all in one smooth motion. "You don't want to eat that," Jody said. "Nonsense, it smells great. It's like every little bean and pork piece is sending out its own delicious miasma of flavor vapor." Tommy used words like "miasma" because he wanted to be a writer. That's why he'd come to San Francisco in the first place-to take life in big bites and write about it. Oh, and to find a girlfriend. "Put the burrito down, and back away, Tommy," Jody said. "I don't want you to get hurt." "Ha, that's cute." He took a big bite and grinned at her as he chewed. Five minutes later, because she felt responsible, Jody was helping him clean bits of masticated burrito off the kitchen wall and the front of the refrigerator. "It's like every bean was storming the gates of repressive digestion to escape." "Yeah, well, being refried will do that to you," Jody said, stroking his hair. "You okay?" "I'm starving. I need to eat." "Not so much eat," Jody said. "Oh my God! It's the hunger. I feel like my insides are caving in on themselves. You should have told me about this." She knew how he felt-actually, she had felt worse when it happened to her. At least he knew what was happening to him. "Yeah, sweetie, we're going to have to make a few adjustments." "Well, what do I do? What did you do?" "I mostly fed off of you, remember?" "You should have thought this through before you killed me. I'm fucked." "We're fucked. Together. Like Romeo and Juliet, only we get to be in a sequel. Very literary, Tommy." "Oh, that's a comfort. I can't believe you just killed me like that." "And turned you into a superbeing, thank you very much." "Oh, crap, there's burrito spooge all over my new sneakers." (Continues...) Excerpted from You Suckby Christopher Moore Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Moore. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

About the Author

Christopher Moore is the author of eighteen previous novels, including Razzmatazz, Shakespeare for Squirrels, Noir, Secondhand Souls, Sacré Bleu, Fool, and Lamb. He lives in San Francisco, California.

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