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** While Ghost and Steven kill the vampire responsible for [[spoiler: Anne's fatal pregnancy]] (and also kill a vampire who had nothing to do with it), the rest basically get off with a warning, while the guy [[spoiler: who actually administered the abortifacient that directly led to her demise, and who, it is hinted, may have deliberately botched it out of revenge,]] is killed off by unrelated characters for a completely unrelated reason. No one else even knows she died and are left to assume she's alive and well somewhere.
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* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Steve internally admits to himself the only reason he wants to keep living is Ghost.
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* AccidentalMurder: Ann accidentally kills her father Simon with an overdose, having intended only to knock him out so that she could escape him. The town assumes he committed suicide.
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* MissingMom: A running theme.
** Due to the fatal circumstances of vampiric birth, none of the vampires have mothers.
** Ghost was raised by his grandmother. There's no indication of what became of his mother, although it's assumed she's dead.
** Ann's mother died when she was young, leaving her to be raised by her weird, controlling father.
** Steve's mother (and [[DisappearedDad father]]) are never mentioned at any point in the novel. It's unclear if they're dead or alive, or what sort of relationship Steve might have with them. They're just...not there.
** Kinsey's mother died in a horrific industrial accident when he was a young man. Prior to that, their relationship wasn't the greatest, and Kinsey's mostly grateful that her life insurance money allowed him to purchase the Sacred Yew.
** Due to the fatal circumstances of vampiric birth, none of the vampires have mothers.
** Ghost was raised by his grandmother. There's no indication of what became of his mother, although it's assumed she's dead.
** Ann's mother died when she was young, leaving her to be raised by her weird, controlling father.
** Steve's mother (and [[DisappearedDad father]]) are never mentioned at any point in the novel. It's unclear if they're dead or alive, or what sort of relationship Steve might have with them. They're just...not there.
** Kinsey's mother died in a horrific industrial accident when he was a young man. Prior to that, their relationship wasn't the greatest, and Kinsey's mostly grateful that her life insurance money allowed him to purchase the Sacred Yew.
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** Jessy's father recalls having sex with her long after Jessy has disappeared from the narrative. [[UnreliableNarrator We see the event from his point of view]], and he is convinced that ''she'' seduced him rather than him assaulting her, possibly just in order to feed on him. We never find out if vampirism and/or pregnancy with a vampire child creates incestuous parent-child desire, or if he is just an abuser and Jessy put up with his attentions because she desperately needed blood.
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** Jessy's father recalls having sex with her long after Jessy has disappeared from the narrative. [[UnreliableNarrator We see the event from his point of view]], and in the moment he is convinced believes that ''she'' seduced is seducing him rather than him assaulting her, possibly (possibly just in order to feed on him.him). Later, however, he becomes convinced that he assaulted her and is racked with guilt. We never find out if vampirism and/or pregnancy with a vampire child creates incestuous parent-child desire, or if he is just an abuser and Jessy put up with his attentions because she desperately needed blood.
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** Jessy's father graphically recalls raping her long after Jessy has disappeared from the narrative and it's never relevant to the main story.
** Jessy's father recalls having sex with her long after Jessy has disappeared from the narrative. [[UnreliableNarrator We see the event from his point of view]], and he is convinced that ''she'' seduced him rather than him assaulting her, possibly just in order to feed on him. We never find out if vampirism and/or pregnancy with a vampire child creates incestuous parent-child desire, or if he is just an abuser and Jessy put up with his attentions because she desperately needed blood.
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** Jessy was raped by her father.
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** Jessy [[UnreliableNarrator either raped, or was raped by by]] her father.
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* DomesticAbuse: After finding out she cheated on him, Steve beat and raped his girlfriend Ann in a fit of rage, prompting her to break up with him.
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* GratuitousRape: There's quite a bit of rape in the book, mostly to demonstrate how depraved the vampires are and how little they respect human life. There are two instances of sexual assault unrelated to the vampires that stick out as particularly superfluous:
** Jessy's father graphically recalls raping her long after Jessy has disappeared from the narrative and it's never relevant to the main story.
** While Steve raping Ann resulted in them breaking up and Ann running off with the vampires, the rape itself isn't that necessary for the plot; Steve and Ann were already having a rough patch due to infidelity, and it's treated more as just a bad break-up than a serious incident of domestic violence, so they could just have easily gotten into a fight and broken up to hit the same plot beats.
** Jessy's father graphically recalls raping her long after Jessy has disappeared from the narrative and it's never relevant to the main story.
** While Steve raping Ann resulted in them breaking up and Ann running off with the vampires, the rape itself isn't that necessary for the plot; Steve and Ann were already having a rough patch due to infidelity, and it's treated more as just a bad break-up than a serious incident of domestic violence, so they could just have easily gotten into a fight and broken up to hit the same plot beats.
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* SurpriseIncest: [[spoiler:Zillah and Nothing]] begin a sexual relationship and are then informed they're actually father and son; [[spoiler:Zillah]] didn't know he had a son due to abandoning [[spoiler:Nothing]]'s mother shortly before she found out she was pregnant, and she subsequently died. Unusually, they continue their sexual relationship even after learning this, which they justify as them being vampires and therefore no subjects the laws and social norms of humans.
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* SurpriseIncest: [[spoiler:Zillah and Nothing]] begin a sexual relationship and are then informed they're actually father and son; [[spoiler:Zillah]] didn't know he had a son due to abandoning [[spoiler:Nothing]]'s mother shortly before she found out she was pregnant, and she subsequently died. Unusually, they continue their sexual relationship even after learning this, which they justify as them being vampires and therefore no subjects not subject to the laws and social norms of humans.
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* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Notably, you're not turned into a vampire, you're born one. Vampires are a predatory subspecies of humanity that have been living alongside, breeding with, and preying upon humans for eons. In fact, the four main vampires in the book (Zillah, Molochai, Twig, and [[spoiler:Nothing]]) have so much human ancestry that almost all the 'classic' vampire traits have been bred out of them. In one scene, a much younger vampire envies Christian, who is several hundred years old, because he has fangs.
** It seems [[NatureVersusNurture it's possible to have a vampiric heritage without becoming a vampire]]. When Christian leaves Jessy's child on a random doorstep, he does so in the hope that the baby will grow up as an ordinary human--[[spoiler:but he isn't surprised to learn, fifteen years after the fact, that Nothing's vampiric nature inevitably asserted itself in spite of his mundane upbringing.]]
* ParentalIncest: Jessy and her father. [[spoiler:Zillah and Nothing.]]
** It seems [[NatureVersusNurture it's possible to have a vampiric heritage without becoming a vampire]]. When Christian leaves Jessy's child on a random doorstep, he does so in the hope that the baby will grow up as an ordinary human--[[spoiler:but he isn't surprised to learn, fifteen years after the fact, that Nothing's vampiric nature inevitably asserted itself in spite of his mundane upbringing.]]
* ParentalIncest: Jessy and her father. [[spoiler:Zillah and Nothing.]]
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* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Notably, you're not turned into a vampire, you're born one. Vampires are a predatory subspecies of humanity that have been living alongside, breeding with, and preying upon humans for eons. In fact, the four main vampires in the book (Zillah, Molochai, Twig, and [[spoiler:Nothing]]) have so much human ancestry that almost all the 'classic' vampire traits have been bred out of them. In one scene, a much younger vampire envies Christian, who is several hundred years old, because he has fangs.
**fangs. It seems [[NatureVersusNurture it's possible to have a vampiric heritage without becoming a vampire]]. When Christian leaves Jessy's child on a random doorstep, he does so in the hope that the baby will grow up as an ordinary human--[[spoiler:but he isn't surprised to learn, fifteen years after the fact, that Nothing's vampiric nature inevitably asserted itself in spite of his mundane upbringing.]]
*ParentalIncest: ParentalIncest:
** Jessyand was raped by her father. father.
** It's revealed that [[spoiler:Zillah andNothing.]]Nothing]] are father and son after they became lovers.
**
*
** Jessy
** It's revealed that [[spoiler:Zillah and
* SurpriseIncest: [[spoiler:Zillah and Nothing]] begin a sexual relationship and are then informed they're actually father and son; [[spoiler:Zillah]] didn't know he had a son due to abandoning [[spoiler:Nothing]]'s mother shortly before she found out she was pregnant, and she subsequently died. Unusually, they continue their sexual relationship even after learning this, which they justify as them being vampires and therefore no subjects the laws and social norms of humans.
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* VampiresAreRich: Subverted. The trio ride around in a van and are basically murderous, opportunistic hobos. Christian supports himself by bartending.
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* VampiresAreRich: Subverted.{{Inverted|trope}}. The trio ride around in a van and are basically murderous, opportunistic hobos. Christian supports himself by bartending.
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* VampireProcreationLimit: Vampires are a separate species who cannot turn humans into their own kind; you must be a born a vampire. Vampires can interbreed with humans, although it's implied that it's not guaranteed that the resultant offspring will be a vampire. Another complication is that vampire pregnancies are pretty much always fatal to the women carrying them, even if the woman is also a vampire, due to the fetuses devouring their mothers from the inside. As such, there aren't very many vampires because procreating is so unpleasant; one of the few female vampires mentioned in the novel tried to avoid ever having sexual intercourse out of fear of pregnancy, but got pregnant anyway [[ChildByRape after being raped]].
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IUEO now
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* AwesomeMcCoolname: "Ghost" appears to be Ghost's real, legal name. (His famous spiritualist grandmother also had a cool name: Deliverance.)
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* {{Bishounen}}: The eternally young and preternaturally gorgeous Zillah. Ghost is also described as "lovely".
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* EmoKid: Nothing. He gets better.
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* ParentalIncest: Jessy and her father. [[spoiler:Zillah and Nothing]].
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* ParentalIncest: Jessy and her father. [[spoiler:Zillah and Nothing]].Nothing.]]
* PrettyBoy: The eternally young and preternaturally gorgeous Zillah. Ghost is also described as "lovely".
* PrettyBoy: The eternally young and preternaturally gorgeous Zillah. Ghost is also described as "lovely".
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* MoralDissonance: Steve's [[RapeAsDrama reaction]] to Ann's infidelity.
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Yaoi Guys has been made a disambig page
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* YaoiGuys: Zillah and Nothing, Nothing and Christian, Nothing and various others...
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* MoralityPet: Ghost is the only person Steve treats with any tenderness.
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* KarmaHoudini: Steve never gets arrested for raping Ann. Also, Nothing never gets any kind of comeuppance for helping the trio kill Laine, despite the fact that he was supposedly his best friend. He never even seemed to feel sad.
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* KarmaHoudini: KarmaHoudini:
** The worst thing that happens to Stevenever gets arrested for after raping Ann. Also, Ann is that Ghost makes him feel mildly crummy about it.
** Nothing never gets any kind of comeuppance for helping the trio kill Laine, despite the fact that he was supposedly his best friend. He never even seemed to feel sad.
** The worst thing that happens to Steve
** Nothing never gets any kind of comeuppance for helping the trio kill Laine, despite the fact that he was supposedly his best friend. He never even seemed to feel sad.
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* EvilAlbino: A hitchhiking Nothing is picked up by [[SinisterMinister a lecherous albino preacher]] who expects oral sex in exchange for the ride.
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* EvilAlbino: A hitchhiking Nothing is picked up by [[SinisterMinister a lecherous albino preacher]] who expects oral sex in exchange for the ride.
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* AgentPeacock: Zillah.
* TheAlcoholic: Steve. It could be argued that a lot of the cast are this to some degree.
* TheAlcoholic: Steve. It could be argued that a lot of the cast are this to some degree.
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* AgentPeacock: Zillah.
Zillah is androgynous and outwardly delicate and beautiful, but is prone to spectacular violence.
* TheAlcoholic:Steve. It could be argued that a lot of the cast are this to some degree.degree--the vampires drink copious and constantly without consequence, and even Ghost likes to tie one on-but only Steve has developed a serious problem: he can't stop once he's started, and he does dangerous, violent things while drunk. (The vampires also do a lot of dangerous, violent things while drunk, but they also do dangerous, violent things while sober.)
* TheAlcoholic:
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* MysticalWhiteHair: Ghost.
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* MysticalWhiteHair: Ghost.Ghost's delicate white hair seems to be linked to his psychic powers. His mystical mother and grandmother both had the same color.
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* PsychicPowers: Again, Ghost.
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* PsychicPowers: Again, Ghost.Ghost was raised amid Appalachian folk magic, speaks to nature and to the dead, [[TheEmpath can feel others' pain]], and sees into the future.
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** It seems [[NatureVersusNurture it's possible to have a vampiric heritage without becoming a vampire]]. When Christian leaves Jessy's child on a random doorstep, he does so in the hope that the baby will grow up as an ordinary human--[[spoiler:but he isn't surprised to learn, fifteen years after the fact, that Nothing's vampiric nature inevitably asserted itself in spite of his mundane upbringing.]]
