Let The Right One In by: John Ajvide Lindqvist

Synopsis:

It is autumn 1981 when the inconceivable comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenage boy is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last---revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day.


But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door---a girl who has never seen a Rubik’s Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night. . .
[from barnesandnoble.com]

I saw the movie to Let The Right One In a little while ago, so one would think I knew what I was getting myself into with this movie. But, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Lindqvist had so much more in this novel than was shown in the movie. I loved all the storylines in this story, and how each character we were introduced to somehow tied into all the others. It was great and seems like quite a job to accomplish.

Eli is probably one of the best vampires I've seen in modern literature, I really liked her. I wish we could've gotten a bit more background on her. And Oskar was a really cool protagonist. You feel for him, but you know that he's probably a little crazy. In a sea of Mary Sue/Gary Stu characters, Oskar was a breath of fresh air to me. He was different. The two characters were also really good together. I loved the whole Morse Code thing. They had that childlike innocence but were mature, too. They had a great relationship that I thought Lindqvist did a great job with.

Even the side characters were given proper time to develop. I really felt for Virgina and Lacke by the end of the novel. They all got enough time to have good backstories and become three-dimensional.

There were a couple style things that I didn't like. Lindqvist used ellipses like they were going out of style, and by the end of the book, I just wanted to start crossing them out. It got really annoying to see unneeded ellipses smack dab in the middle of a sentence. And he didn't put commas in front of names, so that kind of bugged me a little. Maybe it's just a cultural thing?

Now, this novel does have parts that might upset some readers. There is some gore. Lots of blood and inner organs and brains. So, if you're not a fan of that, you might not like the novel. And there are some touchy issues with prostitution of young boys and things like that.

I liked the setting of the novel. All the snow and ice and darkness. It really played well with what was happening in the novel.
And I loved the end of the novel. The last fifteen pages were just awesome.

So, I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who likes the vampire genre and can handle the more mature aspects of the novel. I'd also recommend the movie. It follows the novel really well and the main actors who play Oskar and Eli were great. I'm kind of nervous to see how the American version is going to be.

Overall rating: 10/10