ruthmoog's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense slow-paced

3.75

Narrated by Steven Pacey.

The narration was a bit hard to follow, some of the accent choices for characters were random and distracting, and given that they did a good job pronouncing Swedish words and places I was confused! It wasn't always clear when the context changed which made the story hard to follow as we would change character often, and so I would lose the thread and get distracted - I'm disappointed I didn't enjoy it as much as other readers, I think this was why. I couldn't get lost in it.

It's disgusting, but gripping and interesting. The pace is choppy going from high drama to mundane quite sharply. 
Sections start with quotes (which is a trait I don't enjoy) but I did smile to get a Bob Hund quote in there!

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ashlynseehafer93's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

3.75

Made me feel weird.

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onefineslime's review against another edition

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dark
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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harmonyae's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25


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jully_bean's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

One of my new favorite books. So beautifully written and packed full of twists and surprises 

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melosamatic's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0


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fschmidt2001's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

One of the coolest vampire stories I've ever read, also perhaps the most disturbing thing I've ever read.
One thing I found especially interesting is the characterization of Elie - their gender expression was one of the fun surprises halfway through the book, but more importantly I like that theyre still 12, even though theyre a 200 year old vampire -pretty much all other vampire stories have their child vamps possess the mind of an adult, and it was interesting to see another expression.  Also the biology of the vampiric disease was FASCINATING!

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kiwibird's review against another edition

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5.0

One of the best and most disturbing books I've ever read. 

On the surface, it's a vampire novel, but once you look below this, it's really a book about the (perhaps unavoidable) evil of humanity and being an outsider in a society that wasn't made to accept you. It also had a lot of unexpected queer themes—deep down, the narrative of the main character Oskar is just the story of a young boy coming to terms with his sexuality. The character of Eli, the young vampire Oskar falls in love with, is also fascinating. The text refers to Eli intermittently as she and he, and though she insists multiple times that she's "not a girl", she still chooses to present herself femininely. It's very easy to read her as a transfeminine nonbinary character, even though these terms weren't commonplace when the book was written.

I don't want to say that this novel is completely unproblematic, especially when it comes to its queer representation. I won't go into much detail so as to avoid spoilers, but there are several harmful stereotypes employed in the narrative, and Eli's transness can easily be seen as something that was forced upon her rather than a choice she made. 

Despite these criticisms, I thoroughly enjoyed Let the Right One In and the way it grappled with heavy themes. This is definitely not a book for the faint of heart (be sure to check content warnings for this one), but if you're interested a good vampire story where the humans are the real villains, a portrait of 80s Stockholm suburbs, or a horror-genre exploration of growing up queer, you should pick it up. 

{Note: I read the original Swedish version, so I can't comment on how the English translation holds up.}

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amandalove2bme's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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kimhawk's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0


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