Customer Reviews

Let the Right One In: A Novel

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I'd been anticipating this novel for quite some time, and not just because I'd booked to see the author at the Melbourne Writers' Festival. This tale is much more than just a vampire story. It has crime, social commentary, school life, parental issues, alcoholism and cats. It's so refreshing to read an urban fantasy novel that doesn't have the cliché kick-arse heroine. Instead, we have schoolboy Oskar, bullied relentlessly at school, who has a macabre fascination with murder. Eli, who's just moved next door, is like no one else Oskar's encountered for, and there's a good reason for that. Oskar and Eli are two of the most fascinating characters I've come across in a long time. The cat scenes are disturbing - the moral of the story being not to own eighteen cats. (I'm happy with just one.) The cruelty and violence of the kids is horrifying; forget the innocence you believe children have. An engrossing read that leaves me waiting for the author's second novel to be translated into English.

Vampire stories tend to come in two flavours -- either they're creepy horor stories, or celebrations of goth hotties tortured by their immortality.

But John Ajvide Lindqvist's "Let The Right One In" is neither kind or story. Instead this haunting, atmospheric Swedish movie is a poignant look at a very unique friendship between a young boy and a vampire child. His spare prose has a haunting poetic edge even in the violent scenes, and is littered with moments of pure creepiness and beauty.

A man and a young girl have moved into the apartment next to Oskar's. But he's more concerned with the savage bullies that attack him every single day.

But as he vents his frustrations by stabbing a tree, he sees a ghostly young girl named Eli, who informs him that she can't be his friend. She turns out to be as much of an oddball as Oskar -- especially since she only ventures out at night, smells like death, and is unaffected by the winter cold. But despite her odd greeting, the two strike up an innocent friendship.

At the same time, her servant Hakan is going around town killing young boys for Eli's sake, and trying to blackmail her into sleeping with him in exchange for blood. Oskar realizes that Eli is a bona fide vampire -- and not really a girl -- but doesn't intend to let that get in the way of their puppy love. Yet when Hakan's errands go horribly awry, Oskar finds himself to be the only person Eli can rely on.

Trust me, "Let the Right One In" has no sentimental ideas about children (even vampiric ones) -- they can be more violent than anyone, because they are more vulnerable. The adults are all distant and/or alcoholic, leaving the children to fend for themselves -- which makes the tender, clumsy connection between Eli and Oskar all the more striking.

The plot starts out slow, with Oskar expressing his anger and loneliness in violent fantasies, and Hakan being all creepy and pedophiley as he harvests blood for Eli. The story gradually grows tenser and more murky as the tensions grow more overpowering, leading to a gruesome clash in a cold swimming pool (with shattered glass "over the water like myriad white stars").

While Lindqvist's prose also starts out stark and spare, it becomes more dreamlike and haunting once Eli and Oskar start meeting at night. The words become more poetic ("Her fingers were long and slender as twigs), and even the brutality of Eli feeding off a teenage boy is written beautifully. Simultaneously, Lindqvist pares down the conversations between Hakan and Eli to mere brief exchanges, and thus keeping Eli's true nature a mystery.

And Lindqvist does a brilliant job with the vampiric angle. It's eerie rather than bloody or scary, and he manages to come up with some new twists (Eli's "dead" smell and matted hair). But this book's heart is the bittersweet, strangely innocent romance between Eli and Oskar -- they play with puzzles, laugh on the swings, and listen to each other through the walls.

And their moments of violence -- Oskar's rage and Eli's bloodthirsty feedings -- are only reflections that these children aren't meant to be out in the grimy daylit world. Oskar grows in courage and confidence thanks to Eli, and the lonely otherworldly Eli finds the one person in the world who really cares. Oh yeah, and there's the creepy Hakan, Eli's grotesque "guardian" who tries to starve the young vampire into having sex with him.

"Let the Right One In" is the sort of vampire novel that comes along only rarely, full of violence, darkness, beauty and a haunting wintry world of loneliness. Definitely a must-read.

I love vampire fiction. I usually had to search really hard to find them (till Twilight created this vampire storm). But now I have to try and find good ones, which is far more frustrating.

Unfortunately I watched the movie directed by Tomas Alfredson first. By unfortunately, I mean that I like to read the book first, the movie was NOT a disappointment, I very much enjoyed it. Afterwards, when I was googling this movie to find where I could buy it I noticed the book. The next day I bought it, in two days it was devoured and I cannot praise this book enough.

After enduring love stories with sufficient eye-rolling on my part; this book surprised, shocked, disgusted and delighted me. It was far from a predictable read.

Oskar is a troubled, awkward twelve year old. He's bullied, ignored, strange and longing for a friend. When Eli comes along, the friendship slowly blossoms (it's not BAM, "oh you're hot and we must date because you're undead") it's frightening at first for Oskar when he discovers Eli's (at least one of many) secrets. But, the story isn't just focused on the two of them - though they are the main story - there are several other interesting characters who add to the story. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes horror/sci-fi/urban fantasy and/or vampires.

I came across this book on a pure fluke, but I'm so glad I did. At first the book starts out like a typical murder mystery. But it starts taking twists and turns right away, like when we are introduced to the protagonist who's an unpopular, socially awkward boy who falls in love with a girl that's dirty and weird. Once we delve more into the book, the twists keep on coming as the girl's identity is revealed and the harshness of the world that the protagonist lives in.

I loved this book despite having some creepy moments and moments that made me exclaim outloud. It was very chilling, but it was a much welcome respite from the usual vampire romances that are full of cliches and gender inclusive romances. I recommend this book highly for people that want to read something that's realistic and a fresh perspective on an almost laughable and too cliched genre.

I avoid most vampire stories, let alone a vampire story with any kind of love, friendship and romance in it. Usually too far fetched or sappy. However, I found, Let the Right One In a great read even without the horror parts. It is a good tale about adolescence, the supernatural and friends.

Meet Oskar, a shy, imaginative 12 year old boy of a single mom. Typical target for high school bullies. The poor guy is constantly ridicule and beaten to the point where he literally wets himself. Enter the weird girl next door, Eli and her weird "older relative." Oskar soon makes an awkward friendship with this girl-next-door. He finds that, in many ways, she is the least mixed up character in his life. Meanwhile, Oskar's neighborhood, a bleak, low-income area, soon becomes a worse place to live when people start disappearing or dying in gruesome ways.

Oskar suspects something odd, even wrong about his new friend. He soon realizes something is dangerous about her constantly changing health, expressions and the way that she asks him "Can I come in?" Yet, from knowing her, he gains an independence, strength and courage that he never knew before. He begins to see the inadequency of the police, the neighborhood drunks, the school and his own separated parents. With the social pressures, threats from bullies and despair with his parents, Oskar starts realizing the worth of a true friend, human or otherwise.

This is a translation of a novel written by a Swedish author. I enjoyed the story very much. The character development was well done and it was not the typical vampire story. The main character in the novel, a young boy, befriends a girl that has moved into his apartment building with a man that appears to be her father. Later on, you discover who the man really is and who and what the girl really is. A fascinating look at vampires - you sympathize for the young girl (the vampire) which is unusual for this type of character. I also recommend watching the movie - I thought is was an excellent telling of the novel - for the most part, a true representation of the novel.

***CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!***

A while ago, my husband and I watched the movie Let the Right One In, which was based on the book written by John A. Lindqvist, on the recommendation of a favourite singer of mine, Terami Hirsch. The problem was that we had a version of the movie that had English dubbing, rather than subtitles. I thought this would be a good thing since my husband is very anti-subtitles (I, on the other hand, can handle foreign films), so I didn't think it would be that bad.

Boy, was I wrong.

The dubbing was the worst English dubbing I had ever heard for a movie. Some of the male characters sounded like girls and it all seemed too much like a version of Coronation Street ' light and fluffy ' rather than one of the best horror movies of the year.

So, when I bought the book, I was hesitant to read it. I picked it up a few times, but immediately put it down in favour of something else. When the day came that I decided to read Let the Right One In, without putting it down, I couldn't have been happier. From page one, this was an amazing book.

I had never read any older vampire books. I do have some Anne Rice and some Bram Stoker on my shelves, but I have definitely been pulled into this genre by way of young adult fiction. That being said, while I saw the movie, I was still not prepared for what I was about to read.

There is a fair amount of gore in the novel, though it's not an obscene goriness ' in a way it's almost tasteful (if that's possible). I learned not to read this book while eating because Lindqvist can get very descriptive. However, the book is balanced out nicely by both humour and a love story.

Oskar, a young boy who is constantly bullied at school is longing for a backbone so he can stand up for himself. He finds a knife and decides to take out his anger on a tree in the courtyard of his housing complex. One day he meets Eli, a young girl who moved into his complex who is drawn to Oskar. Even though Eli tells Oskar that they shouldn't become friends and that Oskar should stay away from her, the two become friends, seeing each other nightly in the courtyard and talking via morse code through the walls of their apartments. Of course, it is later found out that Eli isn't what she says she is.

It's almost romantic, in a way, when Eli talks to Oskar about why she has to kill people. While she says that Oskar would like to kill the boys who bully him if he had the chance, Eli says that she has no choice. She needs to kill people in order to live. She says she is not a vampire, but rather lives on blood. This doesn't seem to bother Oskar too much until Eli's blood-getter servant, Håkan, gets caught trying to capture a boy for blood and Oskar is the only person Eli has to turn to while Håkan ' horribly disfigured after dousing himself in 100 proof acid ' turns into some kind of zombie with a permanent hard on. Oskar's' main concern is to protect Eli while other peoples' worlds crumble around them as Håkan is on the pursuit to also find Eli.

Love, mystery, murder, vampires, zombies, coming of age, bullying, terror, gore, humour ' Let the Right One In has it all. I didn't find the story to be too slow ' there's a lot going on that keeps the reader interested. Even though I had seen the movie, I was on my toes during the last half of the book, wondering what was going to happen.

Shortly after finishing the novel, I decided to watch the real version of the movie with English subtitles. I absolutely loved it. When it was over, I was sad to have lost that connection with Eli and Oskar, but happy that I found a new movie to add to my favourites. A few things confused me, though ' Why did the movie makers decide to change Virginia's name to Tania? Or Jonny's name to Conny? And why did Conny seem so ' feminine? Why did they leave out one of my favourite parts in the book ' when Oskar is close to being killed at the pool and Eli has to ask someone to invite her in in order to save him?

The ending also confused me. In the movie, it seemed that Oskar was not a vampire, but instead decided to leave with Eli as a friend. In the book, it seems vague on whether or not he was turned into a vampire. The book and movie were both wonderful ' all the right parts (minus the real 'let the right one in' part at the end of the novel) were present in the movie. I'm leary to think of what will happen with such a beautiful book AND a beautiful movie when they are transformed into an American version (which usually ends up as hit or miss), but I'm hoping that it translates well. I still can't understand why the name is being changed to Let Me In ' I had read that it was changed because the name was too long, which confuses me since movies with titles like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford are allowed to have long titles. Do fans of the horror genre come across as not having enough brains to be able to remember a movie title? But I digress.

I will say this ' Twilight will seem like unicorns and fairies compared to Let the Right One In. Read only if you're ready for a REAL vampire story.

This book is not for everyone. Some of the relationships and situations in the book are uncomfortable to read and will turn many off. The authors writing style is like a bastard child of Stephen King and Clive Barker. He writes dark, he writes evil and he is relentless, but he has skills. Sometimes there is a thin line between what is evil and what is good and this book will have you cheering for the dark side. For those of you looking for another Twilight or Trueblood turn around and run.

I received this book as a gift, which thrilled me to no end since I really enjoyed the Swedish movie that was based on this novel. (I have yet to see the North American remake movie.) I opened the book hoping that, as is often the case with me, the original novel would be just as good as or better than the film.

I was not disappointed.

The author has an incredible talent for detail, building realistic characters and all their idiosyncracies that are not essential to a novel but add so very much. It isn't often that I see a novel create such complete people; most often, the only parts of a character that are revealed are the ones essential to the plot, or at least to an important scene or two. As it was, I came away feeling that the characters were real, were people and not just skeleton figures dressed up for the purpose of telling a story.

The plot moved along with wonderful pacing, though I confess that I was more interested in what happened to Oskar and Eli than most of the other adults who were touched by an encounter with vampirism. It wasn't that those bits were boring (on the contrary, some of them were quite interesting), but they didn't hold my interest as well as other parts.

I also loved how gritty the setting was without being over the top. No idyllic little town, but it wasn't filled with wife-beaters and drunkards in every house. Families were broken, people's lives were strained, but they lived as well as they could and took their pleasures in what came their way, the way that the majority of people do. Life was neither great nor crappy. It just was. I like seeing that.

If anything baffled me about this novel, it was the reviews on the back. While I can't comment much on the one that compared Lindqvist to Stephen King (not having read any King...), I wish I knew what was going through the mind of the one who said that this novel had "vampires at their Anne Ricean best." I wonder, has that person ever actually read any of Rice's vampire novels? I saw no echoes of Rice in there; if anything, I saw a new twist on vampire physiology and an interesting expression of old vampire lore, but it didn't touch on anything that Rice had built up in her novels.

Ultimately, this was a fantastic novel that I'd hand out copies of to everyone I know, if I could. Do not pass up the chance to read this one. If you like your vampire tales dark, gritty, and real, crack this one open and prepare for an amazing ride.

I picked this book up after much talk about how creepy and scary it was. I for one can't say I would classify it as horror but what I did find was an excellent read that kept me hooked from the beginning to the end with only a brief lull in the middle.

This isn't your typical vampire novel and the author achieves something that is beyond original within the pages of this book. For fans of something written outside the box, you should find this an enjoyable read.