Defanged
by H.E. Edgmon
Middle School    Feiwel    240 pp.
9/25    9781250874009    $17.99

Lux Priddy has always considered himself a good vampire who doesn’t make trouble for others, unlike those scary, violent vampires rumored to live in an underground society called Nox Urbus. In theory, he should be fine with being Defanged, a procedure pioneered by the organization Vampirism Sucks to “cure” vampirism. However, right before his scheduled Defanging on his twelfth birthday, Lux makes an impulsive escape into the New York City sewer system in search of refuge. As it turns out, Nox Urbus is real, and the supportive community he finds there doesn’t match up with what he’s been told his entire life. When a major court ruling makes Defanging mandatory, Lux must choose whether he wants to resist or assimilate into a eugenicist, human-supremacist society. Edgmon makes deft use of the vampire as an allegory for the Other, telling the story of a fictional marginalized community trying to live on its own terms in the face of escalating systemic oppression. While the primary group alluded to is autistic people, the story also draws parallels between vampires and queer people and marginalized racial groups. The close third-person narration presents an emotionally rich insider’s view of an autistic kid’s subjective experience, complete with “infodumps” about special interests, sensory overstimulation and sensory joy (through stimming), the challenges of tripping over the invisible wires of unspoken social norms, and more. Suspenseful, timely, and thought-provoking.

From the November/December 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.