Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Let The Right One In

So I just started reading Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I've picked up the book a few times but have never had a chance to sit down and read it. At first I couldn't even find the book because it goes by two titles, Let The Right One In and Let Me In. The book is Swedish so when I first started it took a while to figure out the names and slang but once I got a hold of that it was much easier. I'm only a few chapters in and they're already introducing tons of characters with complicated Swedish names.
As far as the plot goes it's about a teenage boy in Sweden (where there have been several murders) who makes friends with this weird girl who moves into the apartment next to him.
I've never really read a Swedish book before so I was surprised to find out how graphic and bizarre their writing can be. For example one of the main characters Oskar is only about 13 and has this creepy obsession with murders and has this creepy fantasy about being a mass murderer. "He was a dreaded mass murderer. He has already slain fourteen people with his sharp knife without leaving a clue behind" This was the first line that really addressed how Oskar thinks.
Another one of the main characters is Hakan, who appears to be the girl next door's father (or so you believe at first). He starts off murdering someone in the woods and draining their blood and then turns out to be a pedophile (clearly not the most desirable person in the world). Though the way they describe him makes me feel almost bad because he seems to be disgusted with himself more than anything. Honestly when I was reading the scene where he admits to being a pedophile it was making me so uncomfortable I actually wanted to stop reading the book. I'm still not that far into the book but it's off to a really creepy start and is getting really interesting.

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