Until the Full Moon 1

by Sanami Matoh

Overview

After ten years apart, aristocratic vampires and childhood friends Marlo and David are back together– as fiancés! Being half werewolf and half vampire, Marlo undergoes a peculiar transformation, becoming a woman rather than a beast under the full moon. So there's no problem for a wedding and David's womanizing fangs– right?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935429890
Publisher:	Kodansha International
Publication date:	08/23/2011
Series:	Until the Full Moon , #1
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	220,794
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.73(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

Editorial Reviews

Matoh, perhaps better known for her “boys love” police procedural Fake, ventures into gender-swapping fantasy. Marlo, product of a mixed vampire/werewolf marriage, transforms at the full moon; rather inconveniently for Marlo and alarmingly for his parents, his transformation is not from man to wolf but male to female. Faced with dismal prospects for a cure for a condition more unconventional than harmful, Marlo’s parents hit on what seems to them a suitable solution: engage Marlo to his old childhood chum, the womanizing David. David, indifferent to gender and smitten with Marlo, is enthusiastic about the idea. He takes female Marlo’s reluctance as evidence Marlo is equally infatuated. Matoh’s art is slick but uneven, particularly in the beginning; her writing is painfully derivative, both of overwrought romance stories and more famous gender-swapping comedies, and excessively repetitive, with loud pronouncements of love gaining nothing from their frequency. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 11 Up—David is a vampire and his cousin, Marlo, is a special breed of werewolf. Instead of turning into a wolf, he turns into a woman during the full moon. David is in love with him, but Marlo only wants David when he is a woman. Meanwhile, their parents decide that an arranged marriage between them is in order for the sake of preserving their bloodline. While Marlo is coming to grips not only with being engaged but also with uncovering his true feelings for David, he must also deal with being kidnapped and a jealous ex-girlfriend. This is shojo, make no mistake about it, but even dedicated fans may find the suspension of disbelief necessary to get through this first volume to be burdensome. The sap flows freely, and that's not the worst of it. A number of plot holes go unexplained (how does a man who is a woman for three days a month bear a child?) and unlikely scenarios pile on top of one another like unsorted laundry from a dryer with about 10 too many sheets of fabric softener. This one is not worth purchasing.—Jason M. Poole, Webster Public Library, NY

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