Reviews

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

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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.

Content Warnings

adamagoesit_'s review against another edition

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funny 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? It's complicated

3.75

bonafidefaygo's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted reflective 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

This was a cute M/M vampire romance. I thought the tension was well done. I really enjoyed the vampire lore/worldbuilding and I thought it was done surprisingly well.

However, I would've enjoyed if the big bad pharmaceutical company had a little more development. But I know this has a few connected companion novels following different relationships so maybe it's explored further in later books.

And I will say I don't normally enjoy third act conflicts because I find them to often be too drawn out, and I was glad that it wasn't the case here.

I didn't find the prose itself to be anything exceptional, and there were times I found it to be grating. I didn't think the banter between our MCs or our MC and his bestie to always land or feel realistic. And I, even as a gamer, certainly don't need to read descriptions of people gaming and hear about what they're doing in the game.

And I also feel that an adult romance book should have at least one explicit scene in it, and this was lacking although I know you can read it as a bonus chapter online somewhere.

Overall, this was cute. And I would maybe be willing to check out their other books in this series of only to explore the world more.

thebonekingdom's review

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3.0

🩸The Most Half-assed Review🩸

As usual, since I only barely read the synopsis of the books in my TBR, this book was quite different from what I imagined. To make it short, I thought it was Best Friends-to-lovers with a single dad MC, but it turned out to be a stranger-to-lovers with an unemployed parentless MC.

Honestly, my will to make this review is as huge as my will to work: non-existent.
Amusing, easy to read, but not fascinating nor groundbreaking.

The romance is rather basic. There are only a handful of characters and it mainly takes place in Wesley's house. As a result, and this is something I say a lot, not many things happen during the 3/4 of it. This book could be summed up with "I assume how the other feels without asking and then get sad over it" because this is what the romance is like throughout the whole book.

Nevertheless, Vincent was adorable and I think he might be my favourite character. He is selfless, sweet and I could relate to some of the conflicted feelings he suffered from.

While the book mainly is a contemporary romance, the subplot focuses on the mystery of Wesley's mother's disappearance. It was an interesting addition to the story and had a lot of potentials but was not developed enough. It was as if the author wanted to add some spice to their book without putting in the effort to really create something with it. It was superficial, easily resolved but fun... for the brief moment it lasted! 🫡

I'm not going to lie, I wish the book's main plot was its subplot instead. Despite how half-assed it was in the current story, it would definitely have been great if it had the whole book dedicated to its development!

This subplot was also used as a tool in the romance to create some drama and obstacles in the MCs' relationship and, unfortunately, this was another thing I disliked. The whole "I was using them but now I love them but if they know the truth they will hate me" kind of scenario is one I find particularly awkward and I experience no enjoyment reading about it... frustrating is what it is !

Anyway, this time I'll let my laziness take over and stop my review there ~ 🫠