Book: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Ebba Segerberg (2007)

Let the Right One In was a little difficult to pin down. To be honest, I don't really like it and I won't be reading it again, but it doesn't deserve less than 3 stars. Yet, there are technical issues regarding the pacing of the story and the rushed, almost haphazard ending that don't allow me to give it 4 stars. I read Let the Right One In after seeing the original Swedish film, which I loved. I saw the film after hearing a review that recommended it as the cure to the disappointment that is Twilight. Something along the lines of, if you want to see a vampire romance done right ... And I agree. This is a vampire romance done really, really right. But it's also really, really off-putting. Everything about the narrative is off. It's creepy, psychologically unnerving, and at the end of it all I feel the need to bleach the inside of my brain and to give the space under my skin a really vigorous scrub.

( Blackeberg. It makes you think of coconut-frosted cookies, maybe drugs. 'A respectable life.' You think subway station, suburb. Probably nothing else comes to mind. People must live there, just like they do in other places. That was why it was built, after all, so that people would have a place to live. )