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Suck It Up | 
 enlarge | Author: Brian Meehl
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Category: Book
List Price: $15.99
Buy New: $9.35
You Save: $6.64 (42%)
New (34) Used (11) from $7.68
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 28250
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0385733003
EAN: 9780385733007
ASIN: 0385733003
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
ARE YOU UP to your neck in bloodsucking vampire stories?
Tired of those tales about dentally enhanced dark lords?
Before I wrote this book I thought all vampires were night-stalking, fangpopping, bloodsucking fiends. Then I met Morning McCobb. He’s a vegan vampire who drinks a soy-blood substitute called Blood Lite. He believes staking should be a hate crime. And someday he hopes to march in a Vampire Pride Parade. He was also the first vampire to out himself and try to show people of mortality, like you and me, that vampires are just another minority with special needs. Trust me—this is like no other vampire book you’ll ever feed on.
So, as my buddy Morning says, “Pop the lid, and suck it up.”
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| Customer Reviews:
 Suck it up is a good read for young adults July 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book provided a good read for my girls this Summer. I am glad I purchased it!
 Failed Attempt at Humor July 24, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read a ton of teen fantasy and science fiction, and I'm also interested in LGBT* literature. Given the cover's references to pride parades and coming out, I expected this book to be an intersection of the two. Insofar as I can tell, this work is either meant as a silly story that nonetheless supports tolerance, or as a satire of modern tolerant and multiculturalist trends.
If it is just a silly story and the author is actually in favor of "equal rights" and "respect" for everybody (these are mentioned as Vampire League goals), then he simply didn't do his homework. It's a fantasy, so maybe I shouldn't expect the author to know a whole lot about the real world...ok, whatever. I'm disappointed in this guy's cluelessness, but nobody's perfect.
However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the book is intended to be satirical, in which case I'd like to give Mr. Meehl a piece of my mind. Despite the frequent jabs at "PC" language, there are words that actually insult people and hurt feelings - and there are people who respect each other enough not to use those words. Oh, and despite the subtextual parallels between the real LGBT* community and the International Vampire League, our "lusts" aren't inherently violent and dangerous, and being a "virgin" shouldn't make someone a better "poster child." We don't have an agenda or a shady international organization - we're people, like you.
Meehl is ignorant of other groups, too: he claims that the vampires schedule Vampire Coming Out Day on October 1 because it's "not near any major holidays." He must have meant major European-American Christian holidays, because that almost always overlaps with Ramadan and sometimes overlaps with Yom Kippur or the end of the Jewish High Holy Days as well. Not to mention that International Coming Out Day, an LGBT* holiday, is on October 11. Oh, and he drags in the Gypsy stereotype as well, possibly because he hadn't offended enough minorities already. Furthermore, the story is not feminist-friendly or egalitarian: it fails the Bechdel Test, and the protagonist's objectifying and irritating commentary about the female characters got under my skin.
I was prepared to like this book, I really was. I like geeky guys (heck, I play Dungeons and Dragons on Saturday nights with geeky guys) and I like humorous fantasy. Goodness knows lots of fantasy books contain sexist, racist, and otherwise ignorant and intolerant subtexts or themes. But this was too problematic for me to accept.
A book to sink your teeth into July 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Most teen vampire novels drip with dark, gothic atmospheres or devolve into needless whining angst, but this one definately fits the "perky goth" tag. Morning McCobb is anything but your typical dark, brooding teen vampire prince: if anything, he's the antithesis, a lovable, delightfully geeky lover of comicbook superheroes. Among the young members of the cleverly-named IV League, he's a bit of a misfit who falls over himself when he shapeshifts, but his cheerful outlook keep him from falling into the pit of self-pity. The ambitious head of the IV League, a covert organization of vampires who have weaned themselves off the need for human blood, grooms him to be the poster-boy for "Worldwide Out Day" -- his pet project to ennable League vampires to come out of the "selva obscura", the dark forest they have lived within for so long, and mingle with "Lifers", or ordinary humans -- and Morning accepts the role reluctantly at first. But the schemes of a "Loner", a rogue vampire, named DeThanatos, nearly thwart this plan for the reunion of humans and vampires, and endanger Morning's relationship with his PR rep's would-be sophisticated filmmaker daughter.
Slapstick comedy, mischievous turns of phrases, playful tweaks of the vampire mythos, noble derring-do, charmingly awkward romance -- there's a little bit of everything in this book. The pace is a little more slap-dash than I would have liked, but that fits well with the superhero tropes (and comic book references, from X-Men to Superman to heavier material like Alan Moore's Watchmen) that author Brian Meehl liberally sprinkles throughout the story. I'm looking forward to seeing a graphic novel adaptation or sequel to this!
Courtesy of Teens Read Too May 13, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
At sixteen, Morning McCobb is a recent graduate of the IVL. No, Morning isn't a genius. He is a sixteen-year-old vampire just graduating from the International Vampire League. But this League of Vampires isn't what you would expect; their motto is to "drink culture, not life." They exist peacefully by blending in with humanity -- that is, until now.
Morning is going to be the first to "come out of the closet." He's the kind of vampire the League has been waiting for. Young, nonthreatening, the kid is a sangv! Sangv translation: blood virgin, meaning he's never drunk human blood. In fact, Morning has never drank blood belonging to a living organism, human or animal. He drinks Blood-lite, a soy-based blood substitute!
To help with his coming-out process, Morning is teamed up with Penny Dredful, the owner of PR Agency. It is her responsibility to turn Morning's fifteen-minutes of fame into 24/7 coverage. Credibility is the least of their worries; once Morning pulls a couple of CD's (cell differentiation) and turns from a boy into a dolphin, back into a boy, and then into a tree and back again, most people are believers. But not everyone is a Morning McCobb fan. There is a group of vampires called Loners who haven't conformed to the Leaguer way and still feed on humans. They want Morning eliminated before he reveals all of their secrets.
Is the world ready for Morning McCobb, a real vampire?
SUCK IT UP is another rendition of the growing array of young adult vampire novels. Meehl's take on the vampire lore is interesting, refreshing, and humorous! Debunking the myth of vampires and sun as "solar phobia," as well as their fear of garlic -- hello, bad breath! I also enjoyed the references to superheroes and comic characters, being a fan of the genre myself! Morning wants to be a superhero as well as a firefighter, after his experiences from 9/11. The characters are original, although I didn't hold a strong liking to any of them. Overall, SUCK IT UP was a funny and original. This is a book that I think boys as well as girls would like. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy the vampire sub-genre!
Reviewed by: The Story Siren
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