The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. A quote from ‘Publisher’s Weekly’ reads “A tantalizing read.” in the upper left corner, in large black writing. There is a red star to the left of it. The title “Sweetblood” is written at the bottom of the cover in large red writing. The author’s name “Pete Hautman” is written below this, in the lower right corner of the cover, in smaller white capitals. The background shows a young woman, on the right side of the cover, sitting on some kind of white blanket on a white metal floor. She has long black hair, black eyeliner, a long sleeved black shirt, black skirt, black fishnets and black boots. She is sitting with her knees brought up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Alcohol
• Underage Drinking
• Stalking
• Minor Attracted Person
• Medical Content (Including Emergency)
• Drug References
• Ableism

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Summary:

After a lifetime of being a model student, sixteen-year-old Lucy Szabo is suddenly in trouble at school, at home, with the “proto-vampires” she has met online and in person, and most of all with her uncontrolled diabetes.

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Notes:

There is an ebook. There is a kindle editon.

This book won the 2004 Minnesota Book Award for Young Adult Literature. 

This book is marked as “fantasy” and “paranormal” in some places, but there are no actual vampires within it. Rather, it focuses on the vampire subculutre. I have chosen not to tag it as such. I have tagged it as “vampires”.

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Archivist Comments:

Half the reviews on this are praising the portrayal of diabetes, and the other half seem to be complaining about the fact that the teenaged MC is, in fact, a teenager who behaves like a teenager. Shocking right? /s

There’s a lot of stuff directed at her “angsty” behaviour and recklessness when it comes to managing her diabetes. Which. Yeah I get that, but also, maybe that’s the point of the book? I believe Hautman himself is type 1 diabetic.

I feel like the concerns about the stereotyping and over-generalisation of goth culture may be warranted, though. And there is a moment where, (spoilers ahead), the character negligently injects far too much insulin, but this seems to be shown to be wrong and addressed within the book.

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