Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

This is a variation on the vampire story that comes at the genre with a few different ideas about the creatures, and they are definitely different. The "vampires" are called Ina, and are a species to themselves. These people were never human, they are born; they can't "turn" humans into one of them. The Ina also have a very different relationship with humans: they have a symbiotic bond. The Ina takes care of, loves, and needs the human for blood, and the humans need their Ina. Once the Ina and their human become fully bonded, its like the human is addicted to the Ina, and they actually will go through a sort of withdrawal if they haven't been bitten in a while.
This book deals with so much, just like most of Butler's books: religion, bigotry, sex, race, rules, and more. Fledgling concerns the life of a young Ina female called Shori, who is the result of the genetic experimentation of her mothers to create Ina that can walk in the daylight and stay awake during the day. It turns out that more melanin helps, so Shori's skin is dark. There are other's, other Ina families, that hate what they think of as the corruption of the Ina purity, and they take it into their own hands (actually the hands of humans that they use as daytime weapons) to destroy Shori and her family. They succeed in killing her family and all of their symbionts, but they fail to actually kill Shori, who is their main target. Ironically, Shori survives the attack because of the genetic manipulation that lets her stay awake and be out in the sunlight. But she was seriously injured in the attack, so much so that she lost all of her memories of her life before the attack. She meets and takes her first symbiont, Wright, and slowly, very slowly, remembers vague things about who and what she is, then tries to find and punish those who killed her entire family.

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

This is the ninth book in her Southern Vampire Mystery series, and it was just as good as all her other ones!! Sookie Stackhouse begins the ninth book witnessing the Great Revelation of all the two natured people in the world. She's also dealing with Eric and their complicated bond, work, bills, her brother, who she's not talking to, among other things. Then to top that all off, her sister-in-law, Crystal, gets murdered, but not only murdered, she gets crucified!!
Sookie has her plate completely full in this installation of the series. She debates forgiving her brother, and helps him out with his situation despite not really wanting to talk to him. She gets "handled" by Eric, as she calls it; mostly that means that he makes a very big decision for her, one that she hadn't figured out on her own yet, and still wanted time to think about. Her Grandfather also makes several appearances and brings more unwanted trouble into Sookie's life, and of course all of this trouble is of the dnagerous variety, so she has to watch her back and look over her shoulder at all times. This is a very quick read, cause its so easy to get sucked in to her story. This one has a very scary ending, and seems to be a closer call than all of Harris' other Sookie stories. A lot more at stake for Sookie, and she still has lots of decisions to make. I can't wait for the next one!! (Too bad I'll have to wait another year, probably)

#13 You Suck by Christopher Moore

Hilarious book about vampires and the problems they face in this modern world. I read this book fairly quickly, but it took me a few days cause I didn't sit and read it straight through. This is the book after Bloodsucking Fiends, where Jody and Elijah end up getting bronzed (thanks to Tommy). Jody has turned Tommy so they can be together forever, and now they have to figure out what to do next. The cops are expecting them to leave town, but Jody and Tommy think they can get away with not leaving, just lying low and flying under the radar. They find themselves a minion, Abby Normal, aka Allison Green, a deeply perky 16 year old girl who really wants to not be perky anymore. She desperately wants to not be perky, so she dresses herself in black and fishnet and plasters on the black eye make-up and dark lipstick, and tries to invoke the romantic morbid poetry of the masters (Byron, Shelley, and a few others). This gets her noticed by the newly born vampire, Tommy, who needs to find someone who can take care of his and Jody's daytime needs. Tommy becomes "The Dark Master" and Jody becomes "The Countess" for Abby, and she begins her quest to help the two "vampyres" and tries to convince them to turn her.
The plot speeds up to then include a blue hooker, a group of "Animals" who have given the blue hooker more than half a million dollars in just a few short days, and a homeless man who calls himself "The Emperor," who always has his two "men" with him- Bummer and Lazarus, who are really just a Boston Terrier and Golden Retriever, respectively. Lots of action, ultra violet light, and seriously hilarious diary entries from Abby, that make you think you are really inside the head of a 16 year old wanna-be goth girl. I recommend this to everyone.