The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends by Jamie D’Amato (Aug. 26, 2025) Thank you, @macmillan.audio and @wednesdaybooks for the gifted advanced listening copy! #macaudio2025
Brennan, a 19yo Sturbridge University student, was just feeling emotionally recovered from a suicide attempt the previous year when he’s turned into a vampire – and everything is a disaster. But there are a few bright spots – his crush discovers his new life status and is surprisingly cool with it, he finds a group of non-violent vampires, and Cole may just agree to be his boyfriend. But there’s also a missing student, a series of mysterious animal attacks on campus, and a lot of the undead are keeping secrets. Can Brennan solve the campus mystery, learn to control his bloodthirsty tendencies and get the guy?
This one was promoted as Heartstopper meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so it was an obvious choice to request it and the book has those vibes. It is a low-stakes YA vampire romance for the bulk of the story and definitely gives charming first-love Heartstopper vibes. I did feel like the story was a little imbalanced – for the first half, you’re trying to decide what the action is going to be and then the bulk of the plot actually happens in less than the last half.
🎧 Audiobook Thoughts: Michael Crouch does a really great job embracing the YA voice in this one, but I think it could have benefitted from multiple narrators to create more vocal space between teenagers and thousand year old vampires. (11h 3m)
Book: 🌟🌟🌟
🎧 Audio performance: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Smart Kate 