Page count:
432

ISBN:
9780316561686 

Vampires are out of the coffin and going by the name Gloamings. This collection of accounts from a CDC scientist, people labelled as terrorists, an FBI special agent and many more details the events from the time the virus first hit to the global epidemic it has become.

I love vampire stories. I love vampire movies. And I love the evolution of the vampire from being a creature of pure terror to also being a creature with depth. That’s why I decided to take a chance on A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising despite having thoroughly disliked World War Z, a book with a similar premise but different creature.

I’m sorry to say that I really struggled to get through A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising for so many reasons. 

The book is supposed to be “sweeping yet deeply intimate fictional oral history – told from the perspectives of several players”. Which could have been fascinating. Except that the oral histories from several people all sound exactly the same and don’t sound anything like how people generally speak. If it were just the CDC scientist who is “speaking” like she is using a thesaurus and reading her college application essay, I may have bought it. But everyone has the same dull and convoluted tone.

In terms of story, A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising manages to go nowhere very slowly. The plot often gets bogged down in retelling the same events from different perspectives. Which would be fine if they felt like different perspectives. As far as the overarching plot goes, there are a lot of things mish-mashed together and most of them end up lost in a trite ending.

I thought A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising had a lot of potential and there are still a couple of things I liked about it. I enjoyed the threads of current pop culture being wound through it, though would have liked to see how it had more of an impact on the wider world. Let’s face it, if a pop star does something then a huge majority wants in on it too. 

Overall, the idea behind A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising was great. But I found that it just missed the mark in too many ways to be enjoyable. 

If you’ve read World War Z then your feelings towards it will likely be able to give an indication of how much you will or won’t enjoy A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising. Personally, I found the writing to be clunky and unconvincing, and the story was not memorable enough to stand out amongst the giants in the hugely saturated field of vampire literature.

Rating: