The Story

Oskar is a twelve year old boy living with his mother in Stolkholm Sweden in the 1980′s. He is often the target of school bullies and likes to keep a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about murders.

When a new family moves into the apartment beside him, Oskar becomes thoroughly intrigued. The young girl only comes out at night, and there have been a rash of strange murders in the area that coincide with the family moving into the area. A few of the murders have caused the neighbourhood folks wondering what’s going on, and even though it’s irrational to believe they exist, start to wonder if there could possibly be a vampire behind these events.

The Response

THIS is the kind of vampire story I like. You know – scary. Oh, it really was creepy. So much so that I couldn’t read it before I went to bed, otherwise my imagination wouldn’t let me sleep. Vampires SHOULD be scary. Anyone who tells you otherwise should stop reading romanticized vampire books and take a look at folklore.

First of all, I am always so impressed when I read translated novels. For some reason, I always expect their flow to not work as well, but considering the fact that that isn’t the case in any of the translated books I’ve read, I should really change my expectations about that. And this book flowed SO well, read so smoothly. And none of the atmosphere (which is, let’s face it, one of my favourite things about good vampire books) practically oozed out of the book. The atmosphere made this book so thoroughly enjoyable even before I started caring about what was going on in the story.

Aside from the atmosphere, what made this book super creepy was more of the humanity aspect of the novel. Especially when it looked at perversions of certain people in the story. It really explored why Eli’s “guardian” is sticking with Eli – which I don’t remember being explored in the movie at all, so I completely wasn’t expecting it. And I’m glad I wasn’t, because if I knew how much I would be exploring the brain of some dude who fancies twelve year olds, I probably would’ve thought twice about picking this up.

Anyway, moving on…

You know how some books have that “aha” moment where everything changes and you have to go back and reread everything leading up to it to see if there was any way at all that you might have guessed that that would have happened? I totally want to talk about what that “aha” moment was all about except if I do that it would totally ruin it for anyone who reads this and plans on reading the book and it’ such a CRAZY “aha” moment and wow. So I’ll just say that there was this killer moment that is going to make every future viewing of the movie and every future reading of the book make me look more at how certain characters act. And I want someone to discuss this moment with, so if anyone knows what I’m talking about, please let me know so I can get in touch with you and be all “dude, WTF!” about it.

On the topic of characters, they were all so well developed. At first, it seems like there are so many little subplots with completely different groups of people that have no interaction at all, but when things start coming together closer to the end, it shows how well the author planned out all of the characters and events, and everyone involved had an important purpose in the book. I was a little afraid at the beginning that I would lose track of who each of the people were, especially since they all have names that we don’t hear all the time in North America, but thankfully that wasn’t the case at all.

I have to say that the chemistry between Eli and Oskar of them was perfect. The pull that Eli had over Oskar was completely realistic – infatuation with the new and strange, the effect the relationship had on Oskar’s self esteem, the terror he felt when realizing Eli is a vampire, to the need to still be with the person who has become his best friend and love interest.

In fact, as far as realism goes, this was one of the more believable vampire novels I’ve read in a while. Yes, you have to suspend your grasp on reality slightly considering the fact that the book is about vampires, but there is no real moment that makes you go “wait a minute, that’s just totally weird and I don’t see how this is possible at all” until right near the end. Which was a little disappointing – reading about a membrane that Eli has that allows her to fly in the last couple of pages, when previously it doesn’t really talk at all (from what I can remember) about instances where Eli is flying.

And the ending of the book? Completely satisfactory. Typically, I’m not a fan of epilogues, but this one wasn’t cheesy, and actually tied things up in a way I was happy with.

The Bottom Line

All in all? Deliciously creepy! Highly recommended for people who enjoy creepy vampires.

Other Reviews

Love Vampires, Reading Matters, Book Monkey, Stuff as Dreams Are Made On. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

The Story

Three weeks after Rick got shot, he wakes up from a coma to complete chaos. There are no living people in the hospital where he had been – but there are plenty of the living dead. Unsure of exactly what happened in the past three weeks since he was shot, Rick goes out in search of his wife and son, in hopes that they escaped the zombie apocalypse, or that they are at least holed up somewhere safe.

After reuniting with his family in a small camp of survivors, Rick and the others struggle to cope with life – how to keep themselves safe, how to learn to depend on people they don’t know, and how to mostly stay alive.

The Review

The story in Days Gone Bye reminded me quite a bit of Max Brooks’ World War Z in the way it explored how the zombie apocalypse affected those trying to survive as opposed to focusing specifically on the zombies and our fight with the zombies. I love stories like that – and not just the zombie-centric ones – that takes a group of people, totally removes the safety aspect from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and explores how the characters cope… how some of them can’t deal with it, and their lives come crashing down on them, and how others find a way to survive.

It was that exploration of true humanity in the middle of chaos that made this story so enjoyable. Even seeing the petty jealousness of humanity, even seeing how selfish and self-centered people can be, there’s a hope that humanity will survive and that everything in the world is not evil.

The Bottom Line

Highly recommended for zombie fans. Highly recommended for Max Brooks fans. This was highly enjoyable, and I am definitely planning on reading more books in this series.

Other Reviews

…With Intent to Commit Horror. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

The Story

There are two books in this book, so I’ll have to explain the story of both.

First, there is The Changeling. This book tells the story of the person who will be the Angel in the rest of this series. It starts when he is born – without any pigment in his skin or hair, and bright red eyes – and cast out of his family. When his parents cast him out of their home, he is taken in by the woman he calls Auntie. She hides him in her home for 17 years, due to his appearance, until local villagers discover that his is living there and kill his Auntie as a result.

Fleeing from these villagers, the boy stays in hiding until he comes across a Chosen, and due to an accident is Chosen himself. This starts a new phase in the boy’s life, where he becomes one of the creatures who survive off human blood, who cannot survive the sunlight, and whose stealth is so much more than mortals.

Angel of Death takes place about 700 years after The Changeling. In this story, someone is killing off the Chosen (Vampires) of London through brutal poisonings. The Mistress of the London Vampires kidnaps Notus, the Angel’s Chooser and only companion, in order to convince the Angel to take up the quest to discover who is killing their kind.

This quest brings him into contact with other Chosen, and not only must he hide his differences from these Chosen, but he must learn how to trust them if he wants to get Notus out of the grasp of the Mistress and also stop the poisonings of the Chosen before it’s too late.

The Review

This is my second book for the RIP IV challenge.

Oh vampire fiction, I do have a bunch of conflicting emotions towards you. On one hand I love a good vampire story… but on the other hand I am so sick of romantic, not-scary-but-just-misunderstood vampire stories. And this one could have easily fallen into the romantic, not-scary-but-just-misunderstood category, but the author didn’t let it do that. Let me start by saying that yes, there is romance in this book. Yes there is the mortal who falls in love with the monster, and the monster loves her back… but it takes a sideline to the actual story, and isn’t distracting from exploring who is killing the Chosen. And that is ALL I am going to say about the romantic side story thing.

The first thing that stuck out to me about this story, when reading Changeling: Prelude to the Chosen, was how well Dales wove Welsh fairy lore into mainstream vampire lore. It’s believed that the Angel was a changeling before being Chosen… and the people in the area where he lived for the first part of his life believed him to be Gwyn ap Nudd. Even in Angel of Death there are some differences that make you question whether or not he is fey – like the fact that iron burns him. I loved this. And I loved that even at the end of both books, I was still not sure as to what the Angel was before becoming Chosen.

The second thing that stuck out to me was that this book would have been SO much better if it had been better edited. There are so many punctuation errors in the book to the point that it was distracting. Definitely a sad thing, because I wanted to dive into the book and get completely lost in it, but was distracted a lot because of this.

The two books in this book, Changeling and Angel of Death, seem so different so it’s hard for me to really go into them both here. They’re both quite good for different reasons. As I mentioned above, I loved the blending of fairy lore and vampire lore in the first one. It’s a slower moving story, with less action, but is more character driven. You really get to know the Angel before he becomes the Angel; you get to see how he became who he is in Angel of Death.

Angel of Death is much more plot-driven, and had twists and turns that left me surprised at certain events. It takes place in both London and France, and weaves past and present into the story to help the reader understand the characters involved a little bit better. (Though, I will totally admit that I wish there was more than the little bit provided about the Angel’s involvement in the Crusades and the Great Fire of London among other things.)

Okay. So thinking this over, I’ve realized that it’s going to be impossible for me to talk anymore about this book without revealing a major spoiler about it. So, if you don’t want to read this spoiler, please skip ahead to The Bottom Line.

What I think was best about this book, which sets it apart from the not-evil-but-totally-misunderstood vampire books that are so predominant in bookstores right now, is the fact that although the reader is led to believe that the Chosen are vampires, and even while the Chosen believe that they are vampires, it isn’t true. Real vampires reveal themselves throughout the book, and their behavior is much more terrifying, both in what they would do to accomplish their plan to eliminate all the Chosen, as well as what their presence can do to mortals. I applaud Dales for pulling this off, for taking what could have been a run-of-the-mill vampire story and turning it into something so different.

The Bottom Line

I would definitely recommend this book to vampire fans. Overall, a good solid read for both Changeling and Angel of Death. It was a nice change from the vampire fiction I’ve read recently, and I really loved the fairy aspect added to the Angel’s early life – adds to his mystery. I’m definitely looking forward to where Dales goes with this in the future.

Other Reviews

Bitten by Books. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.