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Glass Houses (The Morganville Vampires, #1)
Glass Houses (The Morganville Vampires, #1)
Rachel Caine | 2006 | Fiction & Poetry
9
7.9 (16 Ratings)
Book Rating
194 of 230
Book
Glass Houses ( Morganville Vampires book 1)
By Rachel Caine
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Reread

Just don't stay out after dark.

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation, where the popular girls never let her forget just where she ranks in the school's social scene: somewhere less than zero.

When Claire heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don't show many signs of life. But they'll have Claire's back when the town's deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood.

I don’t care I absolutely love these books!! This is my 5th reread and I have so many memories come back every time I read them. Rachel Caine is an author that helped me a lot at a tough time in my life and she is sorely missed.
  
LT
Let the Right One In
8
6.7 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Several years ago, I had the pleasure (I think?) of watching the American remake of the film, Let the Right One In, which was titled Let Me In. I don’t remember any of it -only that I had found it interesting at the time. Undoubtedly, it had something to do with the fact that, during those years, I had an obsession with vampires. In fact, I gobbled up the Twilight books around then, and yes I am ashamed to admit that. Let the Right One In never crossed my mind again after that, until I received a box of books for free and found a copy of the Thomas Dunne Books translation inside it. Remembering the movie vaguely, and knowing the original version is among my boyfriend’s favorite films, I decided to give it a read and, once again, I am not in the least bit disappointed. I’m not sure if it’s a difference in what Americans find to be taboo in comparison to Swedish folk or what, but between John Ajvide Lindqvist and Stieg Larsson, I think I’m ready to delve deeper into Scandinavian novels!
 
Lindqvist has created for readers a completely deplorable cast of characters, ranging from Eli, the child, to her caretaker, Håkan Bengtsson. These characters aren’t hate-worthy in the same manner as Gone Girl‘s Amy Dunne, but rather in the way that they simply are. I won’t go too much into the details behind why I find the cast of this book to be unsavory, because I feel that just about anything I could say about the characters would, in one form or another, spoil the book; these characters and their flaws, which are bountiful, provide the book with so many unexpected twists and turns that just about anything that could be said might reveal something vital to the plot. Except for my favorite character, which, oddly enough, is Gösta. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that, like Gösta, I adore cats and it is extremely difficult for me to not want to take a stray in. (My boyfriend and I have too many, and I love them more than the entire world!)
 
The plot takes place over the course of about three weeks, beginning near the last week of October and ending on Friday, November 13. For a book of about five-hundred pages, that’s quite a few days to cover and often, that expanse of time, when it is written as detailed as Lindqvist has penned it, can seem like it simply drags on – that is not the case here. As I read, it felt more like a few days than several weeks, largely because the plot is fast paced and constantly moving. Because there isn’t a lot of exposition, there isn’t really much to slow the story down. Told from alternating perspectives, readers are given several different points of view of what’s going on, and from there it is relatively easy to come to your own conclusions regarding the story’s events as well as the behaviors of the various characters. Those I loathed, others might feel pity for, and vice versa.
 
Let the Right One In is a vampire novel, as I’ve alluded to earlier in this review; however, Lindqvist does not approach the idea of vampires in the same method that many books do presently. These are not romanticized vampires, but rather monsters. Horrible, bloodthirsty creatures that will rip out your throat, not sparkle – that’s what Lindqvist’s vampires are. This fact alone scores extra points with me, because I prefer vampires as the terrors they are meant to be, rather than the glorified, dark lovers that plague most contemporary literature.
 
My only gripe with this translation of Let the Right One In deals largely with its flow. While the story itself is excellent and the characters dynamic, the translation seemed to be a bit on the rough side. I do not speak Swedish. If I did, I wouldn’t have a use for the translated version of the story. That said, I know absolutely nothing of the language. Given that my major is in Creative Writing and that I have taken Linguistic courses, I do know that some languages have no tense – at least, not in the way that those of us that speak English view it. That said, there are many times in the translation that I was reading where the tense seemed to switch randomly, and I do not know if this was intentional or not. It was not an issue that I encountered while reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo though, so it’s a bit hard for me to be forgiving about it.
 
This book was definitely worth the read, and I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance to watch the original film adaptation in the future – my boyfriend might have it, actually. I should check!
  
Let Me In
Let Me In
Ebba Segerberg, John Ajvide Lindqvist | 2010 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.4 (5 Ratings)
Book Rating
Several years ago, I had the pleasure (I think?) of watching the American remake of the film, Let the Right One In, which was titled Let Me In. I don’t remember any of it -only that I had found it interesting at the time. Undoubtedly, it had something to do with the fact that, during those years, I had an obsession with vampires. In fact, I gobbled up the Twilight books around then, and yes I am ashamed to admit that. Let the Right One In never crossed my mind again after that, until I received a box of books for free and found a copy of the Thomas Dunne Books translation inside it. Remembering the movie vaguely, and knowing the original version is among my boyfriend’s favorite films, I decided to give it a read and, once again, I am not in the least bit disappointed. I’m not sure if it’s a difference in what Americans find to be taboo in comparison to Swedish folk or what, but between John Ajvide Lindqvist and Stieg Larsson, I think I’m ready to delve deeper into Scandinavian novels!
 
Lindqvist has created for readers a completely deplorable cast of characters, ranging from Eli, the child, to her caretaker, Håkan Bengtsson. These characters aren’t hate-worthy in the same manner as Gone Girl‘s Amy Dunne, but rather in the way that they simply are. I won’t go too much into the details behind why I find the cast of this book to be unsavory, because I feel that just about anything I could say about the characters would, in one form or another, spoil the book; these characters and their flaws, which are bountiful, provide the book with so many unexpected twists and turns that just about anything that could be said might reveal something vital to the plot. Except for my favorite character, which, oddly enough, is Gösta. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that, like Gösta, I adore cats and it is extremely difficult for me to not want to take a stray in. (My boyfriend and I have too many, and I love them more than the entire world!)
 
The plot takes place over the course of about three weeks, beginning near the last week of October and ending on Friday, November 13. For a book of about five-hundred pages, that’s quite a few days to cover and often, that expanse of time, when it is written as detailed as Lindqvist has penned it, can seem like it simply drags on – that is not the case here. As I read, it felt more like a few days than several weeks, largely because the plot is fast paced and constantly moving. Because there isn’t a lot of exposition, there isn’t really much to slow the story down. Told from alternating perspectives, readers are given several different points of view of what’s going on, and from there it is relatively easy to come to your own conclusions regarding the story’s events as well as the behaviors of the various characters. Those I loathed, others might feel pity for, and vice versa.
 
Let the Right One In is a vampire novel, as I’ve alluded to earlier in this review; however, Lindqvist does not approach the idea of vampires in the same method that many books do presently. These are not romanticized vampires, but rather monsters. Horrible, bloodthirsty creatures that will rip out your throat, not sparkle – that’s what Lindqvist’s vampires are. This fact alone scores extra points with me, because I prefer vampires as the terrors they are meant to be, rather than the glorified, dark lovers that plague most contemporary literature.
 
My only gripe with this translation of Let the Right One In deals largely with its flow. While the story itself is excellent and the characters dynamic, the translation seemed to be a bit on the rough side. I do not speak Swedish. If I did, I wouldn’t have a use for the translated version of the story. That said, I know absolutely nothing of the language. Given that my major is in Creative Writing and that I have taken Linguistic courses, I do know that some languages have no tense – at least, not in the way that those of us that speak English view it. That said, there are many times in the translation that I was reading where the tense seemed to switch randomly, and I do not know if this was intentional or not. It was not an issue that I encountered while reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo though, so it’s a bit hard for me to be forgiving about it.
 
This book was definitely worth the read, and I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance to watch the original film adaptation in the future – my boyfriend might have it, actually. I should check!
  
Awakened (Vampire Awakenings #1)
Awakened (Vampire Awakenings #1)
Brenda K. Davies | 2012 | Young Adult (YA)
4
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
www.diaryofdifference.com

Awakened is the first book from the Vampire Awakening Series and it is written by USA Today bestselling author Brenda K. Davies. This is a book where a guy meets a girl. Girl has a secret and tells it on their first date. Boy is a vampire, but we are 80% in the book until it’s mentioned (even though title clearly states it, and you keep expecting it to happen). When secret is told - boy gives girl a choice to escape. Girls chooses to stay, and boy becomes possessive because he wants her too much. Then he does something to her, kind of against her will. And then they live happily ever after.

If I was a few years younger, I would have loved this book, probably because I wouldn’t have noticed all the glitches in it. But right here, right now - I didn’t enjoy it as much I wanted too.

Strong, sexual language and sex scenes can be found throughout the book. This was a book from my sister Tea’s Wishlist Challenge - and I was embarrassed to tell her I am reading this book - because I knew what kind of scenes she has read…

Apart from that - the characters were unrealistic. And unlikable. I liked their friends and their enemies more than I liked the main characters.

Sera - a girl that doesn’t talk to men, and has her own opinion on things, suddenly meets this guy, and he becomes possessive of her, and her character development stops right here. She keeps nodding at him, and obeys his every command. Not much of a heroine, is she?

Liam - a guy that is actually a vampire, but doesn’t tell Sera until things get really serious. He lies to her, is possessive, wants to kill everyone that touches her, and loves her and wants her so much that he has to turn her into a vampire, otherwise he’ll kill her. Really?

Now, if we take the fact that this is a vampire book - firstly, we don’t get to read about vampires until the book is almost finished. And when we do, it is unfinished, and barely even described. I don’t know anything about the way they become vampires, how they survive in the world, how they feed, how they die, but apparently, they can have children, so I guess the author covered everything. Oh, and, also - vampires can walk into the sun, but the more they kill, the more the sun hurts them. So believable - and FAIR.

The only thing that I liked was the ending - the point about how children are possible seemed to have worked out well. Not believable, but it was nice to see that as a theory. And it was also a great layout for the next story to come - which I will be reading, just to see if this writing will improve.

What is your favorite vampire book?
  
Show all 6 comments.
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Leah (: (569 KP) Sep 13, 2018

Yeah I enjoyed it more than the original series. Basically Sydney the alchemist is forced to protect Jill at a boarding school, that’s the least spoilery I can put it (:

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Ivana A. | Diary of Difference (1171 KP) Sep 13, 2018

that sounds amazing! I'll have a look at it!