Does the world really need yet another vampire story? The literary world is awash with a bevy of vampire novels: The Twilight saga, the Vampire Chronicles, the Southern Vampire Mysteries (Sookie Stackhouse) series, Salem's Lot, I Am Legend and the masterpiece - Bram Stoker's Dracula, just to name a few.
Cashing in on the recent vampire craze, British author Matt Haig has penned The Radleys. Set in modern day England - in the small village of Bishopthorpe located in North Yorkshire, the Radleys are an ordinary, humdrum middle class family, who just happen to be vampires. As with many of the modern novels, there are two types of vampires; in this novel they are: the practicing (blood drinking) vampire and the abstaining (non-blood drinking) vampire. The Radleys are the latter of the two. The parents bend over backwards keeping up appearances with their bourgeois neighbors, attempting to deny their innate blood-lust and refusing to tell their two teenage, angst-ridden children that they are all vampires. Unconscious of this vampiric knowledge, one evening, the daughter defends herself from a over amorous bully to a horrifying 'bloody' end. The family must now deal with the aftermath of this murder, the burgeoning vampirism with their children, their own marital issues and a police investigation. Rounding out the story is a Byronic uncle whose influence is felt throughout the local vampire community of northern England and whose past is linked with his sister-in-law's.
This novel had so much promise. Witty British humor and a clever story was bogged down by countless pages of tedious vampire lore that did nothing to move the story forward. Interestingly enough, had those passages been edited or removed altogether, this novel would have been brilliant. Once I got past the boring sections (after approximately reading two-thirds of the book), the story moved along like a speeding bullet to a very exciting conclusion. On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give this story a 3. With better editing, I would have raised it to a 4. It's also a very quick read, having finished it in less than a day. This book would definitely appeal to anyone who loves the vampire genre.
Cashing in on the recent vampire craze, British author Matt Haig has penned The Radleys. Set in modern day England - in the small village of Bishopthorpe located in North Yorkshire, the Radleys are an ordinary, humdrum middle class family, who just happen to be vampires. As with many of the modern novels, there are two types of vampires; in this novel they are: the practicing (blood drinking) vampire and the abstaining (non-blood drinking) vampire. The Radleys are the latter of the two. The parents bend over backwards keeping up appearances with their bourgeois neighbors, attempting to deny their innate blood-lust and refusing to tell their two teenage, angst-ridden children that they are all vampires. Unconscious of this vampiric knowledge, one evening, the daughter defends herself from a over amorous bully to a horrifying 'bloody' end. The family must now deal with the aftermath of this murder, the burgeoning vampirism with their children, their own marital issues and a police investigation. Rounding out the story is a Byronic uncle whose influence is felt throughout the local vampire community of northern England and whose past is linked with his sister-in-law's.
This novel had so much promise. Witty British humor and a clever story was bogged down by countless pages of tedious vampire lore that did nothing to move the story forward. Interestingly enough, had those passages been edited or removed altogether, this novel would have been brilliant. Once I got past the boring sections (after approximately reading two-thirds of the book), the story moved along like a speeding bullet to a very exciting conclusion. On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give this story a 3. With better editing, I would have raised it to a 4. It's also a very quick read, having finished it in less than a day. This book would definitely appeal to anyone who loves the vampire genre.
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