Nineteen-year-old Thomas C. Flood has just woken up and discovered
that his girlfriend, Jody, has turned him into a vampire. He's not
thrilled with the situation. No more tacos because solid food makes
you violently sick. No more sunlight because, well, you get dusted.
No more friends because they are actually vampire hunters and will
no doubt want to kill you. And, perhaps the biggest downside, no
more coffee because any liquid other than blood makes you
vomit.

Being a vampire, while it seems easy in the movies, isn't so
simple. Attacking a human is kind of creepy and frightening at
first. Tommy thinks it's best to practice on other things, just to
try it out and get used to the idea of being a predator. When Tommy
attempts to practice satiating his bloodlust on a cat, the results
are far from the romantic vision we've come to expect. Some things
are more primal, like the need for coffee. Tommy and Jody buy a cup
of java just to smell it. They miss it. When Tommy discovers that
if you add blood to coffee it becomes consumable, Jody becomes much
easier to live with.

Tommy and Jody must move, and soon. Tommy's friends, known as the
Animals, had once helped human Tommy bronze a savage vampire,
trapping him forever. Jody had promised to leave town in exchange
for her life. Now that Tommy is one of the creatures of the night,
however, the Animals and a duo of local cops prepare to hunt Tommy
and Jody down and do away with him. Things of course never go as
planned, and another wrinkle is added: Elijah Ben Sapir, the
Vampire Lord, is out of his bronze prison and seeks
vengeance.

Along the way we are exposed to a young goth girl, Abby Normal (get
it?), who wants to be a minion for Tommy; a call girl from Vegas
whose gimmick is to look like the members of the Blue Man Group;
the Emperor of San Francisco, who feels responsible for those who
walk the streets; Huge Cat Guy and his shaved cat, Chet, who wears
a red sweater; and we get to experience the thrill that is frozen
turkey bowling at the local Safeway.

YOU SUCK is a return to the story of Tommy and Jody that began with
BLOODSUCKING FIENDS. Christopher Moore has a way of spinning a yarn
that is so welcoming and inviting that it warms you up and makes
you want to keep on going. It is a truly fun experience ---
offbeat, witty and laugh-out-loud hilarious.

The characters he brings into his stories are so abnormal that
they're normal, and we can relate to them or recognize them in
other people we know. Then, he takes an incident or an event and
exaggerates it to biblical proportions that somehow seem perfectly
commonplace within his world. Open up YOU SUCK, or any Moore tome,
and you open up an incredible cave of wonders, a veritable Land of
Oz.

With frozen turkey bowling.