Meet Mo Merrydrew - independent young woman, Mini Battenburg fan, president of the debating society - and reluctant vampire queen ...

Fifteen-year-old Mo Merrydrew isn't exactly expecting to be asked to be Vampire Queen of Great Britain when she's cycling home from school one wet Tuesday evening. Apparently, she is 'the Chosen One'. Aside from being uncomfortable with the idea of unelected power (not very democratic), there's the blood drinking to consider (Mo is a vegetarian), and frankly it's just not really the sort of role Mo's looking for (she wants to aim for a real job in politics). But - if you're Vampire Queen, you probably don't have to do PE any more, and when the dreamy Luca, a vampire familiar, turns up, it all suddenly starts to look a bit more appealing ...

Geek Girl meets Buffy in a brilliantly funny new teen series from bestselling author Jo Simmons

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

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When I first heard about The Reluctant Vampire Queen by Jo Simmons, I was excited about it. The plot sounded so good, unfortunately, the execution was nowhere near as good as the concept sounded, and I stopped reading at 47%. Keep reading to find out what went wrong.

The Reluctant Vampire Queen sounded very interesting, unfortunately, I got a bad feeling from the moment I started reading this book.  I stopped reading at 47%, but honestly, I should have stopped reading as soon as the first vampire character turned up with the stereotypical Eastern European accent. It was terrible, and what also bothers me is that a book written in 2022 referred to characters as “Eastern European” and being from “Eastern Europe” rather than providing them with a specific cultural identity. It gave the impression that the author had not bothered to fill out that part of the story, as well as assuming that young adult readers don’t need those details.

This is the first young adult novel by the author, Jo Simmons; in fact, it’s her first book not written for children, and to be honest, that shows throughout the book. The language is very immature for a young adult, feeling more appropriate for a middle-grade novel. Other than the character being sixteen and the quick (and awkward) discussion of consent with her mum, this could easily be a story about younger teenagers. Simmons’s use of slang is also all over the place, which I’m surprised an editor missed. At one point, she uses modern slang when a bully calls Mo a “neek” (geek and nerd combined), and then later she uses slang which is two generations out of date when an adult asks Mo if she’s “going steady” with a boy. That’s the sort of language my grandparents would have used, not a modern-day parent.

The biggest transgression for me, though, is the way that Simmons does complete injustice to her own character. Mo is written as a smart girl, a geek who plans everything. So, can someone please explain to me how her plan to fake being a vampire involves stealing someone else’s mouth guard and painting vampire fangs on it?! This is a girl whose first instinct when faced with vampires is to go straight into research mode, yet when she decides to fake being one, she doesn’t research it at all? She suddenly acts out of character, steals a mouth guard, which, if you’ve never used one before, has to be moulded to a person’s mouth to fit properly, and decides that’s the best course of action. It makes zero sense. Not to mention that in the universe of The Reluctant Vampire Queen, vampires can’t go out during the day, so how exactly is Mo going to continue to go to school, live at home and hide that she’s still human from Luca and the vampires? This is the point where I stopped reading, as it was too ridiculous to contemplate.

What’s worse is that the vampire who turned her can’t tell that she’s not a vampire. I’m sorry, what?! The Reluctant Vampire Queen is a good example of why I’m not a fan of publishing’s current trend of comparing books with other books/franchises. Sometimes it’s accurate, often it’s just a publicity stunt to reel the reader in with false pretences, and that is certainly the case here. I feel that whoever decided to make this comparison has never actually watched Butty, because anyone who has will remember a particular episode where Willow pretends to be a vampire and is found out not to be one pretty darn quickly. Yes, Buffy had a lot of comedic elements, but it took its supernatural world-building seriously. This book seems to have none at all, which disappoints me. I loved the premise of this book, but it’s more high school romcom with vampires thrown in as a cool afterthought than anything actually supernatural. I personally didn’t really see the comedy side of this book, and perhaps if this were a TV show or a Mr Bean movie, it would have been funny; instead, it just comes off badly.

I’ve not read Geek Girl, so I can’t compare it; however, as a geek girl myself, Mo feels very stereotypical. She feels like what people expect a geek or a nerd to be: good at school, only focused on school and making clubs that no one else ever joins. There is so much more to being a geek or nerd than academics, and yes, geeks and nerds are two different things. She even chooses to study over spending time with her best friend, Lou. Speaking of Lou, I’m not actually sure what the point of the character is, as she is seriously underutilised as an actual best friend. As soon as “dreamy Luca” comes on the scene, Mo pretty much drops her bestie (for her “own good”).

I’m sure The Reluctant Vampire Queen will work for some people, but if you read the plot and thought, “hey, this sounds great”, and like a more serious urban fantasy novel, then I would give it a pass. It’s sadly not that kind of book.

Thanks for reading my book review for The Reluctant Vampire Queen by Jo Simmons. It’s due out on 7th July, and you can pre-order it from any of the links in this review.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of my reviews if you’re looking for some more book recommendations 🙂 You can also now sign up for my newsletter to get an email each month with a list of my new reviews!

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