Let the Right One In: A Novel (Paperback)

by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Author), Ebba Segerberg (Translator)
Key Phrases: ritual killer, kronor bills, kronor notes, Traneberg Bridge, Jonny Forsberg, Snow Racer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Swedish author Lindqvist's debut, a horror novel, offers few twists that won't already be familiar to readers of modern vampire fiction. Oskar, a much bullied 12-year-old schoolboy living in a Stockholm suburb, notices that his next-door neighbor, Eli, has some peculiar traits: Eli only comes out at night, smells like death warmed over and is of ambiguous gender. Eventually, Eli reveals he's a vampire who survives by feeding off the neighborhood lowlifes. Occasionally, his bite accidentally turns victims into undeads who, unaware of their vampirization, go on rampages that end in spectacularly gruesome fates. As sweet as the pure and wholesome friendship between Oskar and Eli may be, it's the gory set pieces that propel the predictable plot. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Swedish TV and stage writer Lindqvist's first novel is set in a commonplace suburb of Stockholm, where 12-year-old Oskar lives with his mother, is bullied at school, shoplifts, and keeps a scrapbook of notes and clippings about gruesome murders. Eli, apparently about his age, moves in next door but doesn't go to school, leaving the flat only at night. Shortly after, the killings start. At first more fascinated than sorry, since one victim had bullied him, Oskar eventually discovers that Eli is a vampire, stuck permanently in childhood. What should Oskar do, especially when Eli is his friend as much as anyone is? Lindqvist develops the plot in rich detail. The characters, adult and child, are quite convincingly the sort that one would probably cross the street to avoid in any city. Lindqvist also realistically depicts the aftermath of brutal homicide on the nearby: shock and horror, some sleepless nights and bad dreams, despite which you must go to work and get the groceries; eventually, the police leave the neighborhood. Murray, Frieda --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Mti edition (October 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312355297
• ISBN-13: 978-0312355296
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,682 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Victims and Victimizers, March 3, 2008

By	Dr. W. L. Lyon (Canterbury, Kent UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Let Me In (Hardcover)

Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindovist. has one fantastic element: vampires. It's set in a suburb of Stockholm, on a social housing development that has become a sink estate. It's a sad place, full of aimless people. The people with responsibility - teachers, policemen, parents, are, for the most part, trying to do the right thing. They've got good intentions.

The book has a huge cast of characters with the major division between adults and children, each subdivided into the successful, more or less, and the failures, with a further division into victims and victimizers. The book opens with a bullied child, Oskar, who fantasizes about becoming a mass murderer. He meets Elli, a child vampire. The predictable does not happen.

Many of the adults on the estate are as powerless as the children - lonely, middle aged and elderly alcoholics, unemployed or working at minimum wage jobs. They are presented with a moral choice similar to that of the children: even if a victim, one can refuse to victimize others. (And that is the major freedom the characters in the book have.)

An earlier reviewer said he/she wasn't sure if this was belonged in horror... it's horror in the same way that Henry James' ghost stories fit the genre. It's mainstream/literary/horror, a book that crosses boundaries. I think genres are more useful for finding a kind of reading than describing a book - essentially, this is a very good book that people who read horror and people who would never consider reading horror would both like. It doesn't rank highly on the 'feel good factor' but it has a surprisingly happy ending -- one of those 'happy endings' that is about as happy as, all things considered, an ending can be.

I loved it - and think it's one of the best books I've read in the past year or so.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars unique addition to vampire literature, November 7, 2007

By	Derek Tatum "Derek" (Tennessee, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Let Me In (Hardcover)

I am not sure if "Let Me In" was truly a good book, or if it is because it is so different than much of the vampire fiction being published right now, but I found it fascinating. It is not for everyone - not so much for the violence (par for the course in these sorts of books) as much as the peek into damaged psyches. It's to Lindqvist's credit that he presents even the most revolting human beings as full-fledged characters and not just drooling, one-note lunatics. The vampire, Eli, is also that rarity in horror fiction - a sympathetic vampire who is by no means "good." Eli will attack and kill innocent human beings, yet still remains sad because of her loneliness; in this way, she reminded me of Miriam Blaylock in "The Hunger." Definitely recommended for fans of the weirder side of vampire fiction.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A warning for those who have seen the movie version...., November 5, 2008

By	W.Kim (Los Angeles, California United States) - See all my reviews

The novel, (I've a used copy of the UK translation) is painted on a much broader (encompassing and developing characters that were quite secondary in the film), far wilder and much scarier. Perhaps it's the actress, but the cinematic Eli seems very human at times. In the book, you never forget that she's essentially inhuman.

The author has an interesting knack for making even the most reprehensible characters (worse than the vampire) sympathetic, including a zombie pedophile, sadistic violent children, and a crew of pathetic alcoholics.

I only wish the translator's prose style wasn't so plain, the story could definitely use a little juicing up - not in terms of plot, so much as language.

The current film adaptation's stays close to the first half of the book (though for reasons of emphasis, much has been condensed, compressed, combined and left out - esp. the supporting characters - who add a lot to the original story) up to about the halfway point in the story, when some disturbing possibilities hinted at by the author play out, taking the story in two potentially difficult to take scenes, into JT Leroy-ish, "The Heart is Deceitful Among All Things" territory.

Those interested in reading the book be forewarned. However if you can handle those elements, action and pure horror elements get more plentiful and far, far wilder in the second half of the novel. It's a far harder ride than the movie.

In a way this is a great response to the surfeit of Buffy imitators on the popular fiction shelves these days. After all you'd have to be in pretty f_@kin' dire straits to let someone as utterly "other" (not to mention lethal) as the book's Eli into your life. And Blackeberg (the public housing estate Oskar edures) ain't Sunnydale. It's gotta' enough monsters even without the supernatural ones. (Think, Hubert Selby-Lite, with Vampires).