Sweetblood

Sweetblood is a young adult novel by Pete Hautman, first published in 2003. It is the story of a teenage girl's encounter with the vampire subculture. The novel "was recognized as a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults and received the Minnesota Book Award for Best Youth Literature".[1]

First edition (publ. Simon & Schuster)

Plot summary
"There are only two races that matter: the Living and the Undead.
And with every year that passes, the numbers of Undead grow. It is inevitable."

So says 16-year-old Lucy Szabo. She has a theory: hundreds of years ago, before the discovery of insulin, slowly dying diabetics were the original vampires. Lucy, a diabetic herself, counts herself among the modern Undead. As Sweetblood, Lucy frequents the Transylvania room, an internet chatroom where so-called vampires gather. But Draco, one of the other visitors to Transylvania, claims to be a real vampire—and Lucy's not entirely sure he's kidding. As Lucy becomes more involved with the vampire subculture, the rest of her life comes to seem unimportant. Her grades plummet, her relationship with her parents deteriorates, and her ability to regulate her blood sugar worsens dramatically. Then she meets Draco, face to face, and he invites her into his strange world. Lucy realizes that she needs to make some difficult choices—if it isn't already too late.

Background

Pete Hautman himself has type 1 diabetes, like the main character. Lucy, who was diagnosed at the age of six, believes she developed diabetes after receiving excessive amounts of rabies shots. Lucy's vampire theory is based on author Pete Hautman's own ideas on diabetes and vampirism which he first wrote down in 1978.[2]

Many vampire forums actually exist.

gollark: I emailed god, but no response back yet.
gollark: If the software updates are made on a different continent and you can apply them in less than about 50ms, you don't even need the time travel - just transmit them directly to your computer via a trans-crustal neutrino beam. Neutrinos travel only very slightly slower than light, and can take a more direct path because they don't interact much with matter, while the fibre-optic lines for internet traffic only let light go at 0.6c or something, and use less direct paths, and have routing overhead.
gollark: You did not specify that they were stolen from evil people, and possibly yes.
gollark: I'm not an EVILDOER!!!!!
gollark: See, it's important to download and install security patches as soon as possible to minimize the amount of time you go around with insecure software with vulnerabilities now known to everyone. But my internet connection is slow. So the solution is simple - download the software updates after release, then send them back in time to a few hours before release and apply them then.

References
  1. "Sweetblood by Pete Hautman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003)". NoveList Young Adult Book Discussion Guide. NoveList/EBSCO Publishing. 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
  2. Sweetblood Essay
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