Review: Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite

Title: Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite
Author: Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker (editors)
Genre: Young Adult, Short Stories, Fantasy
Publisher: Imprint
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: September 22, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices!

In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night.

Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page.

Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by authors both bestselling and acclaimed, including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley. 

Review:

This is an amazing collection of modern vampire stories. Vampire stories have gone out of style in recent years, after the popularity of Twilight. People had said they had been overdone, but there are so many more vampire stories to tell. The white, heterosexual, privileged vampire story has been told many times, but this collection has a diverse range of characters, with queer and disabled characters from a variety of nationalities.

These stories were so original. I would have loved to see any of them turned into a full novel. They had rich settings and diverse characters. There was a Desi story and a Latinx story, and even a story about a vampire in a wheelchair. I’ve never read anything like these stories before, and I loved them! After each story, the editors wrote a paragraph about the vampire trope that was being flipped in the story. These sections showed how much thought went into each story and their placement in the collection.

Each story had a different origin story for vampires and different rules that vampires had to follow. In some, they couldn’t see their reflection in mirrors, while they couldn’t in others. Some vampires turned their victims into vampires against their will, and in others the victim had the choice to be turned into a vampire or not. There were also a couple of stories about vampire slayers, including First Kill by Victoria Schwab, which is being turned into a TV show.

This is one of my favourite books of 2020! I’ll definitely be recommending it for a long time.

What to read next:

Have you read Vampires Never Get Old? What did you think of it?