Last Human: A Vampire Sapphic Dystopian Romance

in an alternate universe where vampires are the norm, one young woman discovers her personal prejudices and begins to learn to cope with them. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for an honest review.

This is book one of The Hybrid Festival and the main character is Ade (Adrianna), a young vampire living with her parents in the Golden City, who prefers visiting the library, reading books and looking after her virtual pet hamster, to going out and about. Luckily her best friend Greta is more adventurous and drags her out to WirePunk, a human festival, where vampires mimic the trends and culture of humans from the past. The Wire Age is very popular, with vampires wearing gadgets and trinkets from when electronics had cables and plugs, rather than the neurolink they all use today. The last human society broke down over a century ago, now there are mainly vampires left in their society. It seems strange to see so many mimicking the dress of humans and buying human food, which messes with a vampire digestive system. Ade is no willing to mess with hers and isn’t used to the smells and atmosphere of the Old Town. Only Greta being there, forces her onto a private seat on the shuttle and to walk around the festival itself. She ends up at one stall that has a young woman serving, who has the most brilliant blue eyes, which is so different from her own violet ones. But Greta tells they must be coloured contact lenses! Ade is quite struck by this woman she later finds out is called Heather and can’t get her out of her mind. Heather works for her aunt in a small shop, for experience and credits, whilst hiding a huge secret in the vampire ruled city she lives in. Ade has a boring existence with parents who insist she eat with them every night, but not really eating when she is drinking a pouch of nutrients and her father adds a nutrient block to his own meal which is bite size, whilst her mother ignores everything, too caught up in whatever she is doing online in her head! Her father works for a government laboratory, but won’t tell her exactly what he does each day. Her mother doesn’t think she will be brave enough to go back to the old town and the festival by herself, so she does the next day, just to prove it to her mother! She meets Heather again at her stall and is persuaded to buy some fingerless gloves, to avoid anyone reading her information from her hands. Ade is learning more about the city she has always lived in and with Greta showing her about, she soon ends up seeing where other vampires live, some in very posh old homes, rather than the replicas of rigid formatted boxes, she and her family live in. She needs to think of a job soon, where she can earn extra credits to pay for her virtual pet and anything else she wants to buy or experiences to try out. Heather shows her round the next festival and an accident soon reveals exactly what she is and the book ends on a cliffhanger, which may only be in the version I have, as an updated version is now available with a somewhat different ending. I look forward to seeing where the relationship between Ade and Heather goes and what the latest discovery may mean for them both! I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.