Bite Me Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Updated on October 9, 2026

Verdict: A gorgeously drawn sapphic YA vampire graphic novel with a killer hook and a found family worth staying for, let down by a romance that barely gets page time and a second half that runs out of room.

Best for: Teen and adult readers who want a quick, moody, Buffy-flavoured vampire story with queer girls at the centre, and who can accept the love story as a promise the book only starts to keep.

Heat level: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5 — young adult, no steam band on romance.io)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.6/5 — a 3.89 Goodreads average across 153 ratings, with the thin romance and the rushed ending as the recurring complaints)

Tropes: Vampire and slayer, forbidden love, crush-turned-enemy, revenge plot, found family, hunter becomes the hunted, betrayal, secret identity, high school senior year, standalone.

Bite Me is the third graphic novel from writer Jennifer Dugan and illustrator Kit Seaton, a standalone paranormal sapphic story for young adults published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers in August 2026 — and its premise is a collision in the most literal sense, because high school senior Poe Parker gets turned into a vampire on the same night the girl she likes, Jolie Prescott, turns out to be a slayer and drives a stake through her chest.

It has a 3.89 average across 153 Goodreads ratings as of October 2026, trade reviews from Kirkus, Booklist and School Library Journal, and a reader response that is warmer about the art than about anything else on the page. Almost nobody dislikes it, and almost nobody thinks it had enough room. Both halves of that are worth understanding before you start.

What Is Bite Me About?

Bite Me sits where three shelves meet: young adult, paranormal horror and forbidden love. Amazon files it under teen vampire fiction and teen comics, the publisher sets the reading age at 12 and up, and School Library Journal pitches it at grade nine and older. This is a 240-page graphic novel built for fast reading, so every relationship, every twist and every piece of vampire lore has to fit into panels — and whether that is enough room is the question the reviews keep circling back to.

Poe is the story’s centre, and what she lacks at the start is nerve: she has spent a long time wanting Jolie without doing anything about it. Jolie’s problem is the opposite of hesitation — she has a secret life hunting the things that just turned Poe, and she uses it. Poe survives, wakes up hungry and furious, and the book follows her as she learns what she is and plots revenge on the girl she used to daydream about.

What Makes This Sapphic YA Vampire Graphic Novel Work

The art: Kit Seaton’s illustrations are the single most-praised element by a distance. Reader after reader calls the art great, gorgeous or fantastic, and one three-star reviewer says she would give the art five stars on its own.
The hook: A girl staked by her own crush and back for revenge is a premise readers compare to a TV pitch — meant as a compliment, mostly. Booklist reaches for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the comparison is fair.
The found family: The supporting cast around Poe is where a lot of readers’ affection goes. A grumpy character named Simon who not-so-secretly cares is the side character reviewers name most, and the banter between him and Poe gets real laughs.
The pace: 63% of StoryGraph reviewers call it fast-paced, and the top moods are mysterious, adventurous and dark. It reads in a sitting.
The creative team’s growth: Several readers who have read all three Dugan and Seaton books call this their favourite, ahead of Coven and Full Shift — though not everyone agrees, which is covered below.

Book Synopsis

Poe Parker has been working up to it for a long time. Senior year is under way, Jolie Prescott is still the girl she cannot stop looking at, and there are signs — small ones, easy to misread — that Jolie might feel the same way. Poe finally decides to say something. It is the worst possible night to try.

That same night Poe is set upon by two vampires, and the attack leaves her dying and changing into something else. Then comes the second blow. The girl Poe was about to confess to is not who Poe thought: she has been quietly training to hunt vampires, and she does what hunters do. A wooden stake goes into Poe’s chest, and Poe’s heart breaks in two senses at once.

Except Poe does not stay dead. She wakes up changed, with a hunger she does not understand and a grudge she understands perfectly, and she is taken in by a vampire who knows far more about what she has become than she does. Learning to live as one of them is hard enough. Learning to hunt the hunter is harder, especially once Jolie discovers Poe survived and seems less murderous about it than delighted. Somewhere between the thirst for blood and the thirst for payback, Poe has to decide what she actually wants from Jolie — and whether a slayer and a vampire can be anything but predator and prey.

My Review

The premise is the best thing Dugan has handed Seaton to draw, and I want to say that first because most of what follows is about what the book does not do with it. Being staked by your own crush is a perfect YA engine: betrayal, grief and desire folded into one image, with a revenge plot built in. The first half uses that well. Kirkus calls the opening half well developed, and readers agree — the turning, the waking, and Poe learning what she is are the most assured stretch of the book.

The art is the other genuine pleasure, and it is the reason most readers rate this higher than they rate the story. Seaton’s style is expressive and cinematic, and Kirkus singles out a smart touch: red used to mark the flashbacks, so past and present never blur. The expressions do emotional work the script leaves unsaid. The found family around Poe is the other place the book comes alive — Simon, gruff on the outside with a soft centre, is the character readers keep naming.

Where it struggles is space, and this is the consensus rather than my gripe. The most repeated complaint across the Goodreads reviews is that the book feels rushed — one reader says it should have been two or three books, another that forty or fifty more pages would have fixed it. Kirkus reaches the same verdict independently: the second half piles on new elements and the side characters and subplots never get arcs. The casualty is the romance. Several reviewers say Poe and Jolie barely share the page until the last few spreads, and one three-star reader asks outright whether there was a romance at all. Jolie, in particular, is the character readers most want more of.

One expectation to reset: it is sold as a sapphic vampire romance, and it reads as a vampire revenge story with a love interest. The romantic payoff is real, but it is compressed into the ending rather than built across the book. If the romance is what drew you, calibrate; if you came for the vampires, the art and the found family, you will get plenty.

My honest note: A great hook and beautiful art in a book about fifty pages too short for its own story. If you need the love story to breathe, this will frustrate you. If you want a fast, stylish, queer vampire read, it is easy to recommend.

Element	In Bite Me
Central relationship	Poe Parker & Jolie Prescott — newly turned vampire and the secret slayer who staked her, crush-turned-enemy
Core tropes	Vampire and slayer, forbidden love, revenge plot, found family, betrayal, secret identity
Setting	Contemporary America during Poe’s senior year of high school, and the vampire world she is pulled into after she is turned
Heat level	1/5 — young adult, no steam band on romance.io
Series	Standalone — the third Dugan and Seaton graphic novel, after Coven and Full Shift, with no sequel announced
Content notes	Graphic vampire violence and a staking, death and grief, mental trauma, betrayal by a friend

How Spicy Is Bite Me?

A 1/5, and that is a description, not a criticism. romance.io lists Bite Me but has not assigned it a steam band — it has only two ratings there — which fits a book the publisher sets at ages 12 and up and Kirkus pitches at 13 to 18. The reader reviews back that up: nobody describes anything beyond the crush, the tension and a late payoff, and the most common romance complaint is that there is too little of it rather than too much.

What is worth flagging in advance is the violence rather than the heat. The vampire attack on Poe is described in the trade coverage as gruesome, the staking is the inciting incident, and romance.io’s crowd tags note graphic violence, mental trauma and death or grief. StoryGraph has no content warnings entered yet. If you want the same register — sapphic, paranormal, closed-door — The Dead and the Dark and Charmed and Dangerous sit in the same band.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you read graphic novels for the art as much as the story, you want a sapphic vampire story with a sharp hook and a fast pace, you enjoy found-family side characters with good banter, and you liked Coven or Full Shift.

You may want to skip it if: you want the romance on the page from start to finish, you need side characters and subplots to get real arcs, you get frustrated when an ending arrives faster than the story earned it, or you want adult heat from a vampire book.

In short: a gorgeous, fast, queer vampire story whose love story is more promise than delivery.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This is a four-week-old book, so the discourse is early, small, and weighted toward advance readers. I found no viral moment, and Reddit could not be checked from here, so its footprint there is unknown rather than absent. What does exist is a clean set of numbers: 3.89 across 153 Goodreads ratings, with nearly three-quarters of ratings at four or five stars and only one below three; and 4.02 from 55 reviews on StoryGraph. Its Amazon ranks — 149th in teen vampire fiction, 865th in teen comics — describe a modest launch, and the likelier channel is the Dugan and Seaton back catalogue: Coven has close to 3,900 Goodreads ratings and Full Shift over 1,200.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The art, first and by a distance — “gorgeous” and “fantastic” are the recurring words, and several readers explicitly rate the art above the story. Then the found family and the side characters, especially Simon, whose banter with Poe gets laugh-out-loud praise. The creepy vampire atmosphere lands. Poe’s arc through betrayal, anger and grief gets praise too. And several readers who have read all three collaborations rank this one the best of them.

What readers argue about and complain about: Rushing, above everything. At least five reviewers say the story needed more pages or more books, that things go unexplained, or that the pacing is inconsistent — and Kirkus says the same, calling the book “an uneven vampiric tale” with a rushed second half and underdeveloped side characters. Worth knowing: the Kirkus pull-quote on the book’s Amazon listing trims the word “uneven.” The romance is the second theme — around five readers say Poe and Jolie are barely together until the end, and Jolie needed more development. Here the trade reviews divide: School Library Journal praises the romantic tension as expertly built, which is the exact opposite of what readers report. Third, format: advance copies went out in black and white with jumbled digital lettering, and several early reviews mark it down for that; one reader confirms the finished book is fully in colour, as Booklist’s praise for its colours also indicates. Finally, taste splits — a couple of readers find it corny, and one who loved Coven thinks this does not reach that high.

The standalone question worth asking first: Bite Me is a standalone. It tells a complete story and you need nothing else to read it — though at least one reader finishes wanting a sequel, and none is announced. If you want more from this team, Full Shift (a werewolf story, 3.96 on Goodreads) is the closest match in rating, while Coven sits lower at 3.74 but has the widest readership. For Dugan’s prose novels, our review of Anderson in Bloom is the place to start.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Bite Me a romance?

Partly. The romance between Poe and Jolie drives the premise, but several readers say the two barely share the page until the end. It reads as a vampire revenge story with a sapphic love interest rather than a full romance.

How spicy is Bite Me?

A 1/5. It is a young adult graphic novel for ages 12 and up, and romance.io has not assigned it a steam band. The more notable content is the vampire violence, not the heat.

Is Bite Me a standalone or part of a series?

A standalone. It is the third graphic novel from Jennifer Dugan and Kit Seaton, after Coven and Full Shift, but it tells a separate story and no sequel has been announced.

Is Bite Me in color?

Yes. The finished book is in full colour, and Booklist praises its colours. Some early reviews were written from black-and-white advance copies, which is why a few mention the art differently.

What age is Bite Me for?

Teens and up. The publisher sets the reading age at 12 and up, Kirkus pitches it at 13 to 18, and School Library Journal recommends it from grade nine up.

If You Loved Bite Me, Read These Next

If the queer paranormal darkness is the draw, The Dead and the Dark runs a sapphic YA ghost mystery at the same closed-door heat, with a full novel’s room to breathe. For YA magic with two girls at the centre and a lighter tone, Charmed and Dangerous swaps vampires for a magical mystery. And for readers who want the bite-that-changes-everything setup grown up, The Girl Who Bit Me turns an accidental vampire bite into an adult romantic comedy with full heat.

For more in this register, browse our guide to the best YA sapphic fantasy books or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

Bite Me is a book whose hook outruns its page count. The premise of a girl staked by her own crush is one of the best in recent sapphic YA, Kit Seaton’s art is the most praised thing about it for good reason, and the vampire found family gives it warmth and humour. It is also rushed in its second half, thin on the romance it is sold on, and short of room for the side characters it introduces. The reader who wants a fast, gorgeous, queer vampire story will get one; the reader who wants a slow-building love story should know most of it arrives on the last pages. Check Bite Me on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Bite Me ranks as a stylish, fast-reading sapphic YA vampire graphic novel — beautifully drawn and sharply premised, held back by a rushed second half, and best approached for the art and the revenge plot rather than the romance.