Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager by D.N. Bryn

61 reviews

blewballoon's review against another edition

dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was way better than it had any right to be with such a silly title. The cover on the audiobook version I had from Libby was also ridiculous. Despite the goofy tone on first impression, there was some depth here. The characters are quickly attracted to each other, and they have natural chemistry, but they had to work through internal and external obstacles to earn their friendship and romance. The power dynamic in the relationship shifts back and forth as the characters make choices about what vulnerabilities to share and what knowledge to keep hidden, and the decisions Vincent and Wesley make feel cohesive with their established goals and past experiences. There is also a bit of a mystery plot with the Vitalis-Barron Pharmaceutical company in addition to the romance plot.

I was surprised that for how many allusions there were to spicy activities, the book is actually pretty tame and fades to black before anything explicit.

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orchidd's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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midnightmoon_dreamer's review against another edition

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dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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whatthefridge's review against another edition

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I only got 28% before I had to call it quits.

I don’t know if it’s me or the story because the plot is serviceable, even if the villain reveal is telegraphed with a neon sign… among other things.

Wesley’s plan to use Vincent to take down a major pharmaceutical company within an entry level position strains my suspension of disbelief. I tried to go along with it under the assumption that it’s a hairbrained scheme meant to show just how out of depth Wesley really is. Because this sort of stuff only works in fantasies. The truth is that corporations rarely get taken out by uncovering a scandal. They have lawyers and publicists to spin things in their favor, and at worst they’ll see a temporarily dent in their profit margins before the general population moves on.

Additionally, Wesley’s motivation being so locked in to vengeance against the corporation makes his thoughts annoyingly repetitive. Sprinkled in with it is Wesley constantly reminding himself that Vincent is inherently a bad person for bodily violating (drinking the blood of) people in their sleep. Both things are valid. But there is nothing else going on.

Vincent’s a complete woobie in the meantime. Practically homeless, he finds what jobs he can to get by while also trying to find access to blood when he can’t pay for bags of it and can’t flirt his way into consent. I’m thoroughly surprised that in this world where vampires are clearly still fetishized that there aren’t any night clubs full of willing humans. Technically Vincent wouldn’t even need to flirt that successfully when just being a vampire would make him enticing. But of course if Vincent had that avenue of relief, then he’d never clash with Wesley. I still wish the option existed with a handwave for why Vincent can’t do it.

I’m always dubious when paranormal plotlines include lectures about discrimination. Vampire are more people-like in this world, with being able to injest regular food and gradually aging, but they’re still superhuman in abilities and, most important of all, take primary sustenance from human blood. They remain predators of people, so talking about vampire “racism” in the same breath as actual racism or marginalized ethnicity/sexuality/etc is a bad look since it’s implying the Others are predators too. Having Wesley be nonwhite Hispanic and having him empathize with Vincent is also yikes. Listen, I am NOT aligning myself with hunters by pointing out that vampires are fundamentally predators. Drinking human blood, bagged or not, is their whole schtick. It’s not racist to acknowledge they are above us on the food chain and we should be wary about that.

Speaking of hunters,

realizing that Matthew Babcock is both Vincent’s employer and the pharmaceutical’s recruiter that’s helping Wesley snag Vincent is what ultimately made me DNF. I get that it’s supposed to be dramatic irony, but I dunno, it feels too contrived for my taste.

Anyway, somewhere between Wesley being a broken record, them being overly meta playing vampire datings sims, the pitiful way Wesley and Vincent keep needing to be forced into proximity to one another, and the villain reveal before they’ve even established a relationship to be ruined all added up to enough disappointment to drop the book.

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thecatconstellation's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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megpadams's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A fun, easy read. It was cute, sad and slow burn.

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margaret_k30's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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alikazam's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I thought I was signing up for a little silly spicy vampire book and then also got like... commentary on marginalisation, othering, allegory for other various types of medical exploitation?!

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wardenred's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I wager my life that you’re going to keep yours.

I feel like the book has never quite come together for me. There are many aspects of it that I liked. Wes and Vincent had a lot of cute moments together. There was some interesting discussion about consent and monstrosity. I really liked the progression of Wes’s feelings, how he started his friendship with Vincent so that he could get his hands on a vampire to bring to the evil pharmaceutical company that probably killed his mom, then developed genuine affection for this specific vampire, but oops, the things with the company were already in motion and it wasn’t possible to just backtrack. There was some really cool tension in the second half of the book over it all, and I liked those tense moments just as much as I enjoyed the various slice-of-life-ish scenes about bonding over videogames and too spicy noodles. Speaking of games, I really liked the sheer nerdiness of the characters. And then there was Wes’s awesome long-distance friendship with Kendall: the strings of messages between them were often great additions to the story, and honestly, everyone needs a friend who will call you out on your shit and push you to make better choices.

So, yeah, a lot of good stuff, but I had so many questions about the worldbuilding around it that it was actually distracting. On one hand, the book is all about the co-existence between vampires and humans, but on the other hand, the vampires’ overall position in the society is soooo unclear. It just keeps boiling down to, “They are very different and keep getting oppressed for it,“ but like, is it a universal situation and does oppression always take the same forms? What about the vampire communities, where are they, how do they function? What is the exact legal status of vampires, are there any regulations around turning people into vampires, what are the laws and regulations about hunting/donor blood? Seems like everyone knows vampires are out there, mostly dislikes them, and also just calmly accepts that one of them might break into anyone’s house in the middle of the night and give you anemia? It all feels like they’ve just recently emerged from the shadows and the world is still adapting, except the book explicitly states it’s been centuries.

Likewise, the whole situation with Wes’s mom’s disappearance and the plot with the pharm company could use some fleshing out. Especially the company thing. I might look up the reviews for book 2 and see if other readers feel like it was expanded on and resolved more later, then decide based on that if I’m continuing with the series.

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its_vendetta's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

SO good!! THE PINING. My only complaint is that it felt a little short like I wanted more of them!! The plot was very intriguing and I like that

the city’s plot doesn’t get resolved and that it continues into the next books with more characters.

It makes it more realistic yet hopeful at the same time. Loved reading about these silly guys

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