Book Review: The Strain

If you know me even slightly, you know I read a lot.  All the time. Normally about 3 or 4 books a week, depending on how intense they are, the subject matter, the writing. Mostly I read fiction but lately more non-fiction.  However, not since Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles (the best being "Interview with a Vampire" which is excellent reading) have I read a book about vampires.  Because of an article in the NY TImes book section regarding the best books of 2011, I just read "The Strain."  I want to make perfectly clear that this book was written in 2005 and thus NOT on their best book list.  But it was mentioned because the third book in the trilogy was published in 2011, "The Night Eternal" and a few reviewers liked it a lot.  "The Strain" is the first book in the trilogy.

I must say, vampires or not, it is a good, but gruesome, read.  The writing is tight, the descriptions are excellent and the characters, at least the non-vampire characters, are steadfast and oddly engaging. Who knew?  Me reading the first in a trilogy about vampires?  And these are not the vampires we have all come to know and hate. These don't have dark cloaks, nor do they have fangs, nor do they simply suck the blood from their victims.  That would be too easy, too neat, too tidy.  I won't describe what happens with these vamps but suffice it to say that they are a sort of walking hell, and we will leave it at that.

One of the authors, Guillermo del Toro, is a movie director who directed "Pan's Labyrinth."  The other author is Chuck Hogan, a writer, whose book "Prince of Thieves" was the basis for the movie "The Town."   So both authors have credibility in their chosen professions. It shows in the writing, the pacing and the subject matter. 

I am not recommending you read this book.  You might like it if you like dark, creepy, scary, Stephen King-like novels.  I may get the second book in the trilogy from the library, not sure yet.  But I found "The Strain"  oddly engaging, even if some parts went on too long. (I read about a third of it in one sitting, couldn't put it down.)  In the end it was a satisfying, if demented, read.  Sometimes it a good thing to get out of one's rut and jump into something totally different.  Or at least that's my justification for this creepy and rather scary novel.

.