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Let the Right One In

by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Ebba Segerberg (Translation)

4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 · rating details · 28,211 ratings · 3,062 reviews

Let the Right One In Takes Top Honors at Tribeca Film Festival!

It is autumn 1981 when the inconceivable comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenage boy is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last---revenge for the bullying he endures at school...more

Paperback, 472 pages

Published October 28th 2008 by St. Martin's Griffin (first published January 1st 2004)

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Dec 06, 2010 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, spooky-ookums

I finally got my revenge on Sweden. For most of my life I’ve been bombarded with newspapers and radio telling me how Sweden is so much much very much absolutely completely better than Britain at practically everything. Here’s some random quotes from the BBC news archive :

“Sweden has probably the strongest freedom of information law anywhere in the world.”

“Sweden has one of the best staffed health services in the world. But as a parent, Sweden seems the perfect place to have children.”

“BBC's Joe...more

289 likes · like · see review

Mar 23, 2010 Manny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: swedish-and-norwegian, mentions-twilight, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, transcendent-experiences

You know that bit at the beginning of Amadeus, where Salieri has composed this very uninspired little march, which he and the Emperor play for Mozart? Then Mozart sits down at the keyboard and says, hm, that's not quite right, is it? And he messes around with it for a couple of minutes, until he's suddenly transformed it into "Here's farewell to the games with the girls" from The Marriage of Figaro.

Well, it's like that Låt den rätte komma in and Twilight. John Ajvide Lindqvist has looked at Ste...more

196 likes · like · see review

Nov 20, 2011 Kat Kennedy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kat-s-book-reviews, i-learned-something-new, leaves-awesomeness-behind, books-i-want-for-christmas, favorites

Imagine for a moment that you were at an event, like the 1995 Rugby World cup where South Africa both hosted and won. Imagine being there in the heat of that moment - the cheer and ebulation. That light, almost unreal sense that the world has faded away and there is only that moment. Nothing else is important and you want to quietly capture the complete bliss you are experiencing and put it in a bottle somewhere. Hopefully at some future date you can take it out and rekindle those emotions and b...more Imagine for a moment that you were at an event, like the 1995 Rugby World cup where South Africa both hosted and won. Imagine being there in the heat of that moment - the cheer and ebulation. That light, almost unreal sense that the world has faded away and there is only that moment. Nothing else is important and you want to quietly capture the complete bliss you are experiencing and put it in a bottle somewhere. Hopefully at some future date you can take it out and rekindle those emotions and bask in that one, perfect moment again.

Then imagine that you are standing outside of a train station. A train has just crashed in front of you. Pleople are screaming, and the stench of smoking meat is tickling your nose as your eyes sting and water. There's that same feeling. That feeling of, "Is this really happening?" Light. Dizzy. Disbelief. Overwhelming to the point of nausea. You can't forget that moment. It will haunt you. Every time you catch a wiff of smoke those memories will come flooding back, whether you want them to or not.

Same feelings, at their most basic level, but entirely different in their mode. In the first situation you jump and holler. You'll hug those around you, even if you don't know them, and celebrate together. Knitted into temporary friendship because you're experiencing the same, awesome event. For weeks later you'll tell anybody who listens that you were there. You'll tell them about how incredible it was and try to impart on them some semblance of what you felt.

Cut back to the second scenario where you'll stand quietly in solidarity with those around you. Once again, knitted together. Brothers and sisters formed from tragedy. You may hold each other and gather around silently. When other people ask you about it, you'll get that look in your eyes that tells them you've seen things.

You're just as altered as the first scene, but where there was ebulation then, there is horror now.

This is what happens when I read certain books. Books like Stolen fit in the first category. They touch me and move me, so I run around telling everyone that I read it. It was amazing. Share in this experience with me. I want to help you feel what I felt.

Then there are books like this. Now I quietly tell you that I read it. That it touched me. Changed me. I look you in the eye and I don't want to elaborate. I quitely turn away and think a little bit more on what I've seen and read, and how it made me feel.

And maybe if you've read a book like this too, you might be able to understand why there's really nothing more for me to say.

(less)

77 likes · like · see review

Oct 24, 2011 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-kindle, 2011, reviewed

Yo, lesson for you, Stephenie: this is how you write a fucking vampire novel.

So you can run and tell THAT.

66 likes · like · see review

Oct 08, 2011 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, ebooks, audiobook, dark-and-gritty, 2000-2005, fang-bangers, children-behaving-badly, the-creeps

Soiled…soiled and a bit emotionally off-kilter.

That’s the best I can do to describe how this book made me feel. It’s dark, morose and...really…really...REALLY…creepy. Not strange sounds and creaking doors creepy. Creepylike that "overly affectionate" uncle who stares at you too often and always wants a hug that lasts for an inappropriate length of time. That kind of creepy.

This book oozes it.

The working class Swedish suburb where the story takes place feels dingy, depressing and rundown. The peo...more

108 likes · like · see review

Apr 30, 2009 Tatiana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, favorites, mysteries-thrillers-horror

As seen on The Readventurer

I can't even find the words to describe how much I LOVED this novel. But let me start by warning Twilight lovers that this book is not about sexy sparkly vampires and teenage love. If you are not ready to read about ugly realities of human life, do not open this book.

It is not an easy book to read. The story is complex and involves many characters, whose presence sometimes is just momentary. The action moves from one character to another very quickly. But once you und...more

62 likes · like · see review

Jul 18, 2010 Esteban del Mal rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who wonder what a baby made by Bram Stoker and William Golding would look like

Shelves: fantasy-horror-scifi, fiction, novel

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
I think I saw you in the shadows
I move in closer beneath your windows
Who would suspect me of this rapture?

And who but my black hearted love
And who but my black hearted love

-- PJ Harvey, "Black Hearted Love"

*****

It's been a rough week.

Our fish died, giving my young, beautiful, precocious, cherished and oh-so vulnerable daughter her first glimpse at Death. It was my first real parenting rite of passage, and I failed abysmally. Me: croaking something about the Circle of Life as I stood in my...more

32 likes · like · see review

Feb 02, 2011 Kristen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nerdypursuits-scififantasy

Terrifying, engrossing and a book that encompasses many different topics. Not just a story about vampires; this book takes on such issues as bullying, revenge, pedophilia, prostitution, drug use, alcoholism and the sheer desperation of loneliness. Beautifully written and terribly disturbing. This book sets the bar for the genre.

46 likes · like · see review

Oct 27, 2010 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scandinavian-mayhem, horror, vampires

After watching the Swedish movie this book is based on, I thought it was an intensely creepy film and promptly got the book to check out the full story. I figured that the planned American film version would be a pale shadow of the original because there’s no way that a Hollywood movie studio is going to show that messed up tale in it’s original form to audiences in the U.S. Little did I know that even the Swedish producers didn’t have the collective nutsack to give us the full story on how godd...more After watching the Swedish movie this book is based on, I thought it was an intensely creepy film and promptly got the book to check out the full story. I figured that the planned American film version would be a pale shadow of the original because there’s no way that a Hollywood movie studio is going to show that messed up tale in it’s original form to audiences in the U.S. Little did I know that even the Swedish producers didn’t have the collective nutsack to give us the full story on how goddamn twisted the book is.

Set in the early ‘80s, it features a 12 year old boy named Oskar whose alcoholic father and overprotective mother are divorced. Oskar is an outcast and is badly bullied by other kids in his class, and he’s developing a pretty good case of homicidal rage because of it. In fact, he’s well on his way to becoming the kind of guy who dances around his basement while screaming at his latest victim to put the lotion on it’s skin or else it gets the hose again.

Before Oskar completely turns into Buffalo Bill, he meets Eli, a deadly vampire who appears to be a 12 year old girl. Oskar and Eli strike up an unlikely friendship that’s almost a pre-adolescent romance, but things are going off the rails around them. Eli’s version of Renfield is a creepy pedophile who is jealous of their relationship and can’t be counted on to keep Eli supplied with fresh blood. When Eli’s need for food makes her sloppy, the results are victims and traces that threaten to reveal her. Juvenile delinquents, Swedish alcoholics, a strict cop, a jar of acid and a herd of cats all collide in a variety of terrible ways.

This is a gloriously gruesome and disturbing horror novel that would probably cause Stephanie Meyer to have a stroke if she ever even dared to hold a copy of it in her hackish little hands. Like the best horror novels, the gore and monsters aren’t the scary parts, it’s the way that the ’normal’ people treat each other that will really haunt you. (less)

68 likes · like · see review

Feb 18, 2012 Midu Hadi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people looking for something different

Shelves: 212books, abuse, crime-fiction, fantasy, horror, historical, serial-killers-and-other-murderers, vampires, singles

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

8 likes · like · see review

Nov 16, 2009 Terence rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of intelligent vampire stories

Shelves: horror-gothic

I wasn't quite sure I wanted to write an actual review/reflection about this novel. I didn't "learn" anything from this book (except maybe how not to troll for victims of my or my master's vampiric lusts?), and other reviewers here (and elsewhere) have adequately summarized the story for the interested. But in light of the flood of vampire-themed schlock we've been enduring the last few years...

For those who care - Read this novel. It's very good. It's an example of what a vampire novel can and...more

9 likes · like · see review

Oct 02, 2009 Kasia rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scared-shitless, vampires, horror, scandinavian, lovely-covers

It's bumming me out. 50 pages in and I'm giving up. I don't think I can take this much gore any longer. It's disturbing. I need at least one likable character - someone to root for, only then I can take in gore, serial murderers, pedophilia and such. Without somebody to identify with, suffering through one violent description after another is no fun. This was no fun.

And now I'm fighting this urge: I want to crawl in under the table, wrap myself up in a blanket, stuck a thumb into my mouth and r...more

25 likes · like · see review

Apr 28, 2009 Meghan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

*This book is now in paperback under the title Let the Right One In*

The story of Oskar, a 12 year-old boy living in a suburb of Stockholm, who is bullied mercilessly at school, has divorced parents, an alcoholic dad, suffers bouts of incontinence, shoplifts for fun, and keeps a scrapbook of newspaper clippings dealing with murder. Needless to say, for one so young, Oskar has plenty of problems, but no one to talk to.

Life becomes a bit more exciting when a strange murder occurs two subway stops f...more

9 likes · like · see review

Oct 08, 2010 Shelli rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

Wow...while I don't read much "horror"....I thought this was a great story! I'd be lying if I didn't say some parts were disturbing and some were downright disgusting, but there was so much more to this book than that. While there wasn't a cast of warm and fuzzy characters...I felt for many of them. I can't think of a word bad enough to describe Hakan that would truly fit him....monster for sure...the scenes with him were the hardest to take. Oskar, Eli, Tommy, Virginia....these were all charact...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jan 01, 2009 Jeff rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having seen the film before reading the novel, I'm less impressed than I might have been had the experiences been reversed. I was engaged throughout, but compared to Lindqvist's screenplay, the novel felt bloated and overtly prurient (while Tomas Alfredson's film was more atmospheric, nuanced, erotic, morally ambiguous, and mesmerizing). Every episode cut from the novel during the adaptation process was absolutely necessary; and a character central to the novel (Haken) was whittled down to just...more

26 likes · like · see review

Jul 29, 2012 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

Dear Stephenie,

This is how you write a book.

Sincerely,

The World

11 likes · like · see review

Sep 06, 2010 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: vampires, fantasy-urban, lit-denmark-sweden-norway

This is a werid, very strange book. Really strange, totally strange.

But it worked for me.

Lindqvist tells the story of Oskar and his friend Eli, who just happens to be a vampire stuck into a 12 year old body, you know like that girl in Anne Rice's books. (I never liked Rice for some reason).

And then people start dying, the blood drained from thier body.

And then other people see something they shouldn't.

And Oskar is bullied, but gets a pair, loses them, and gets them back because now he is has a f...more This is a werid, very strange book. Really strange, totally strange.

But it worked for me.

Lindqvist tells the story of Oskar and his friend Eli, who just happens to be a vampire stuck into a 12 year old body, you know like that girl in Anne Rice's books. (I never liked Rice for some reason).

And then people start dying, the blood drained from thier body.

And then other people see something they shouldn't.

And Oskar is bullied, but gets a pair, loses them, and gets them back because now he is has a friend. (It doesn't quite work like that in real life, however).

And Eli, well, she has her own problems besides that need to suck blood.

I also have to ask, as I'm rambling here, what is it with Sweden? Sorry, I know I sound like the ugly American, and while I lived in Sweden for six months that was several years ago. It's just that this summer, I've read two Swedish books were the hidden violence of a society is exposed, I've seen Swedish (really filmed in Swedish) Wallander mysteries that do the same thing, even the Norwegian Varg Veum movies seem focused on this thing. It's like Norway and Sweden are the European Cabot Cove but with more domestic violence.

Lindqvist seems to have tapped that idea of society being more monsterous than the vampire idea that has appeared in writers like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. He, however, twists it. Eli is not your sparkley vampire lover. She's not human, but not entirely inhuman either. It seems in some ways that Lindqvist is comparing two different types of monsters.

He also is dealing with different relationships. It seems as if every single relationship in the novel is dysfunictional except for the one between Eli and Oskar. Additionally, there is a absence of father figures, everything is mothers and sons. There is an odd stepfather or mother's boyfriend, but these men disrupt the mother and son relationships further. Not a very happy picture of Swedish home life.

In fact, Eli is the only one who has a father figure present, a father and no mother, and this makes her more different than the fact that she is a vampire. Considering who extactly her father is, it is hardly a healthly relationship.

Lindqvist's novel will at the very least make you think.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Feb 11, 2009 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I discovered this story when I discovered the movie. I enjoyed the film so much I wanted to know more. "Let the Right One In" is in some ways unrelentingly grim. There a lot of horrifying things in it that have absolutely nothing to do with the supernatural, especially if you stop to really thing about them. The horror itself is good too. I've read tons of vampire fiction and find this to be a truly refreshing take on the genre. In terms of the characters, I thought both Oskar and Eli were very...more

27 likes · like · see review

Jan 14, 2009 Belinda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: spooky, contempopop, meh

Call this one "The Anti-Twilight." They had me at "the Swedish Stephen King." Um, not so much.

Easily the most *interesting* read in a long time. 4 stars instead of 5, or 3, because the story--just the pure story? Meh. In itself, only just compelling enough to keep me reading. But the characters--OH, the characters. I ached for every one of them. For a classic co-dependent like me, looking into the lonely, heartache-ridden lives in this book is pure agony...although most of the characters are hop...more Call this one "The Anti-Twilight." They had me at "the Swedish Stephen King." Um, not so much.

Easily the most *interesting* read in a long time. 4 stars instead of 5, or 3, because the story--just the pure story? Meh. In itself, only just compelling enough to keep me reading. But the characters--OH, the characters. I ached for every one of them. For a classic co-dependent like me, looking into the lonely, heartache-ridden lives in this book is pure agony...although most of the characters are hopelessly doomed, no matter what intervention may come.

Sounds cheery, right? Don't read this looking for a pick-me-up. There is not one happy character in this novel. There's no neat and tidy ending, happy or otherwise. Vampires are not romanticized, and they DEFINITELY don't "sparkle." There are many unanswered questions and unresolved conflicts--just like real life. The thing is beautifully crafted, and worth reading just to experience the art of the novel.

It's a real testament to the author's skill that he can create a cast of characters who are at once almost wholly irredeemable and still, somehow, sympathetic. It's a world where all are monsters, to some degree, but have been shaped that way through circumstances beyond their control.

***SPOILER ALERT***

As far as the vampire angle goes, there are far more questions than answers, and no background mythology to speak of. Something that really bothered me was the lack of backstory for Eli. I understood and appreciated the slow feed of mysterious elements from Eli's history as a suspense-building tool (goodness knows this story needed SOMETHING to create suspense, and it relied on the characters instead of the plot for that, almost completely), but what WAS Eli? Why was he castrated? He was only around 200 years old, so it's not like he came from some ancient time with unwritten rituals. Who "made" him? And if he'd "never been dead," then...well, what's up with that? The vampires he created were dead/undead, and all the other "laws" of vampire mythology seemed to apply to Eli, though he seems, despite his age, to be guessing at what's going on a lot of the time (like when he thought that Hakan couldn't come into the flat without being invited, and was wrong).

Anyway, you can tell by how much I want to discuss this book that I found it compelling. Let's just say it's all about the characters. If you're interested in artful writing, you could do a whole lot worse. If you're looking for a pounding, suspenseful, scary, plot-driven STORY, then you might want to just stick to the American Stephen King.(less)

20 likes · like · see review

Jun 16, 2013 Emma Brady rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-from-18-12-12, favorites

Was there any daylight in this book? There probably was. But why did I get the feeling that Oskar and the other characters lived in perpetual darkness?

If he did, that would fit the book so well. It's a dark, sad little book. Brilliant. But sad.

I thought the book was about bullying, loneliness, and being misunderstood, more than anything else. It just happened to have a little vampi-ness in it.

One of my favourite books.

5 likes · like · see review

Apr 08, 2010 Jacob rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

April 2010

Why it's difficult to review this book:

1) Everyone else has already called it the anti-Twilight.
2) The rating system doesn't really have a spot for "OH MY GOD, KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!"

That said, it's a great vampire story. Just bleak. And draining. Kinda like an actual vampire. Hey, I see what Lindqvist did there...

9 likes · like · see review

Mar 07, 2010 smetchie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fucked-up-in-a-good-way, book-club, also-saw-the-movie-or-tv-show, scared-pants-off

I can't stop thinking about the characters. Most of them weren't likable but I ended up caring for them anyway. In the way you care about your family even if they're screwed up and do really bad things. This book is gruesome, horrifying, sweet and tender. how strange.

10 likes · like · see review

Aug 25, 2012 Mike (the Paladin) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Just came in on inter-library loan, so it gets "bumped" to the top of the list.

What an odd book.... I think I'll need to put a spoiler warning on this. It's a little hard to rate this one. I am giving it 4 stars as it is a well written Novel and absorbing. But, it's also so imbued with melancholia, sadness and depression that I don't see how anyone can walk away from it untouched.

(view spoiler)...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 04, 2008 Rebecca Wahlstedt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had expectations on this book, since I got it as a homework and my teacher was all excited over it. I didn't really expect it to be so unusual though, and with unusual I mean diffrent from it's genre. It's stamped as a vampire/terror book and when you hear that you often think about dark alleys, poles, vampire hunters and so on but this is totally different. First of all it takes place in a swedish suburb in the 80's and the main character (Oscar) is a normal swedish boy who gets bullied. Then...more

3 likes · like · see review

Feb 12, 2009 christa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read an interview with Stephenie Meyer, writer of the "Twilight" series, where she said something about how she had taken liberties with the classic vampire story because she was writing fiction and there are no hard-fast rules about what vampires can or cannot do. So she did things like make their skin glimmer in the sunlight.

This is a laughable about of liberty -- not to mention creativity -- considering what John Ajvide Lindqvist has done with the vampire of his novel "Let The Right One In...more I read an interview with Stephenie Meyer, writer of the "Twilight" series, where she said something about how she had taken liberties with the classic vampire story because she was writing fiction and there are no hard-fast rules about what vampires can or cannot do. So she did things like make their skin glimmer in the sunlight.

This is a laughable about of liberty -- not to mention creativity -- considering what John Ajvide Lindqvist has done with the vampire of his novel "Let The Right One In."

Oskar is a loner, whose relationship with his classmates has him on the creepy serial killer fast track. Then he meets Eli, a waify, smelly girl who is seemingly his age who lives in his apartment complex, and they forge a tentative friendship. Typing Morse code messages on the shared wall of their bedrooms, naked spooning and solving Rubik's Cubes. Eli's fatherish sort of person is a pedophile, who kills people and drains their blood so Eli can eat lunch. Although sometimes she just goes out on her own, drops from a tree and mauls a victim herself. In a sort of nod to Melrose Place, the apartment complex also houses a drunk posse of friends -- one of whom Eli treats like a Snackable -- who are trying to make sense of the deaths while negotiating a deep fog of the drink.

In some ways this book was a lot like the Tammy Hoag novel you buy spontaneously while waiting for some blue hair in front of you to organize her cat food coupons at the grocery store. Other times, particularly the parts involving Eli and Oskar, or even just Eli in kill-kill-kill mode, are really amazing in the way they show the hunger for simple needs like love and food. And then there are a handful of side plots that add to the bulk and maybe are necessary in order to give everyone a face and back story, but unnecessary because of the added bulk: Tommy, who lives in the complex, is struggling with accepting his mother's new boyfriend; One of Oskar's bullies wants to learn more about his father.

A small section of the book is written from the perspective of a squirrel.
There are battles against the undead that read like something out of a Batman script.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read, more of a "huh" than a "meh" on my personal Richter Scale, but hardly anything that deserves an exclamation point. I liked these flawed and messy characters, who don't have an ounce of cliche. Although, I'm not sure how it got so long: my soft cover version has 471 pages.

(less)

11 likes · like · see review

Oct 19, 2009 Hannah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

Let me preface my 3-star rating by saying that if this were the type of book I generally read, this would no doubt be 5 stars. As it is not, consider my 3-stars as the highest rating I can give this novel. By any account, this is a masterpiece of it's genre.

Let the Right One In is not for the squeamish. Not for the easily despressed. Definitely not for the teen looking for the next "Twilight". This is not your mother's "Dracula".

This novel is relentlessly dark. Its characters are broken and wast...more

9 likes · like · see review

May 22, 2013 Sonja Arlow rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: recommended

I have never had the compulsion to read a book after I have seen the movie adaptation but this is exactly what happened here. My days of reading Anne Rice novels have long passed so I am not a fan of the vampire genre anymore however this is not your typical horror/vampire story.

The story is set in 1981 Stockholm Blackberg, a working class neighbourhood where a young boy is mercilessly bullied at school. The only interesting thing, besides Oskar’s scrapbook of murders is the arrival of a new nei...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jul 07, 2012 Mircalla64 (free Liu Xiaobo) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

Blackberg, periferia di Stoccolma. Oskar è un efebico ragazzino vessato dai suoi compagni. Ha delle fantasie omicide e un coltello in tasca che non ha il coraggio di usare. Una sera incontra Eli, una graziosa e misteriosa ragazzina, che abita nel suo condominio. I due divengono amici, a dispetto del fatto che lei si fa vedere solo di sera. I loro scambi di parole sono brevi, a volte secchi e concisi. Ma continuano a vedersi. Intanto nel quartiere dove entrambi abitano, cominciano a sparire delle...more Blackberg, periferia di Stoccolma. Oskar è un efebico ragazzino vessato dai suoi compagni. Ha delle fantasie omicide e un coltello in tasca che non ha il coraggio di usare. Una sera incontra Eli, una graziosa e misteriosa ragazzina, che abita nel suo condominio. I due divengono amici, a dispetto del fatto che lei si fa vedere solo di sera. I loro scambi di parole sono brevi, a volte secchi e concisi. Ma continuano a vedersi. Intanto nel quartiere dove entrambi abitano, cominciano a sparire delle persone. E qualcuna viene ritrovata morta. L'uomo con cui Eli è giunta in città, si deturpa il viso con l'acido e apparentemente, si getta dalla finestra dell'ospedale in cui era ricoverato. Eli adesso è sola. E ha bisogno di un amico.

Let The Right One In è un poetico romanzo, dall'atmosfera gotica, che è stato pubblicato in Italia col suggestivo titolo di Lasciami Entrare. Il suo autore, John Ajvide Lindqvist, ha realizzato la sceneggiatura del film tratto dal suo lavoro, motivo per cui la trasposizione è piuttosto fedele.
Come nel romanzo la periferia è squallida e fredda, e la gente bada solo ai fatti suoi.
La notte scende presto e spesso la gente rimane in casa. Le strade sono coperte di neve, e i bambini sono fuori da soli, nell'oscurità. Oskar non ha amici, solo compagni di scuola a cui è meglio sfuggire. Eli è sola, ma terribilmente forte. E lei farà da detonatore alla forza che Oskar non sapeva neanche di possedere.
La trama si evolve pianissimo tra cose sussurrate ed altre solo supposte, per poi esplodere in un crescendo nei toni duri e freddi dell'horror. Si parte da un ragazzino vessato che aspira a vendicarsi, e si finisce letteralmente in un bagno di sangue. Il ritmo lento lascia la sensazione di assistere alla messa in scena di un sogno, che però alla fine diviene un incubo. E l'unica avvisaglia del fatto che siamo di fronte a un incubo viene dal rosso del sangue che, da un certo momento in poi coprirà tutto e tutti.
Nel buio della notte Oskar ed Eli sono soli e terribilmente romantici, di quel romanticismo che sfocia nel gotico. E quella che ci raccontano è una storia sul dolore dell’infanzia e sulla forza dell’amicizia, dove i bambini non sempre sono buoni e gli adulti a volte non sanno cosa fare. La forza del racconto sta proprio in questo negare con violenza gli stereotipi per raccontare, anche con crudezza dove serve, una storia che nella sua semplicità agghiaccia ed intristisce. I bambini hanno una forza che manca agli adulti, persi nelle loro strategie alcoliche, volte a dimenticare una vita vuota in cui le occasioni mancate sono molte e quelle colte ormai dimenticate.
I corpi che emergono dal ghiaccio, o che, semplicemente prendono fuoco sono l'unica nota che richiama alla mente il vero significato della parola vampiro. Eli si nutre di sangue, e di affetto. Ma quest'ultimo le viene donato. Semplicemente lei ispira in chi la incontra il desiderio di prendersi cura di lei. Soltanto questo. E Oskar ha tanto bisogno di sentirsi importante, almeno per qualcuno. La sua vita è vuota, sua madre è divorziata e suo padre non lo vediamo mai, è solo una voce al telefono. E quando lui crede di aver fatto la sua scelta, e comincia a sentire il dolore dell'abbandono, ecco che le cose cambiano. E tutto si colora del rosso del sangue.
Il tutto accade con la lentezza dei sogni per poi lasciare il segno, come solo gli incubi sanno fare e il finale fotografato con lenta maestria, ci lascia col desiderio di seguire i personaggi oltre il confine del racconto stesso, in una vita reale che nulla ha da invidiare alla cattiveria della messa in scena.

Anna Maria Pelella

(less)

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Oct 09, 2012 John Wiswell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Let the Right One In reads like a response to both YA and the idealized visions adults carry of children. Both are incomplete and radically errant, and while unrealism can be quite useful for creating original thought, these visions are dogmatically consistent across books and believers. Lindqvist’s children are intensely curious and capricious, sadistic towards each other out of little more than entertainment or entitlement. But it runs deeper than how conflict is handled – it lies in little Os...more Let the Right One In reads like a response to both YA and the idealized visions adults carry of children. Both are incomplete and radically errant, and while unrealism can be quite useful for creating original thought, these visions are dogmatically consistent across books and believers. Lindqvist’s children are intensely curious and capricious, sadistic towards each other out of little more than entertainment or entitlement. But it runs deeper than how conflict is handled – it lies in little Oskar playing “serial killer” in the backyard, a vicious and disturbing game that lets off some of the tension of being bullied in school, and that millions of real boys absolutely have played. It lies in the unreason of thinking a tin toy soldier is a good farewell present someone who’s kicking you out of her life, or the actual successful tactic of avoiding horrible subjects making them seem like they’ll go away. It’s a profoundly uncomfortable novel because it is experienced and defined by children, and no one knows how to make life more uncomfortable more quickly than kids.

The connection to YA and MG books runs deeper still. I can’t determine how much of the voice is John Lindqvist himself and how much is translator Ebba Sergerberg, yet the chapters following Oskar are striking in their genre-familiarity. The sentence structure tends to go simpler if not shorter, and it tends to fall back more on pop-culture references for details, or likening things, feeling out how they fit into a growing base of knowledge. It is the more readily readable style of much of YA, such that at multiple points I thought of Pippi Longstocking, except the hero was dealing with a bloody corpse instead of a funny dinner party. This is the greatest stylistic tweak in a novel replete with them: capturing how we often portray children’s perspectives in fiction, and then having those perspectives deal with the topics we typically hide from children.

If one compares it to Lord of the Flies, it’s only because Lindqvist takes the next essential step. William Golding showed us the ugliness of boys by setting them alone on an island, but that novel worked because we recognized the tendencies towards non-empathy and factions from our own childhoods (and perhaps adulthoods). Lindqvist brings those things closer to our mundane lives, even as he introduces the supernatural.

Indeed, the early appearance of a child prostitute whose teeth have been pulled out is more disturbing than anything the vampires actually do to people – the inhumanity of humans puts us on par with the creatures of the night. Both have the capacity to terrify, and when Eli maims a woman or bullies hold a child in front of an oncoming train, both situations are tense. Vampires are simply neither the apex predators nor the sympathetic hotties they normally appear in fiction. They are a secretive part of a harmful world.

It helps that Eli is both a vampire and a child, her existence allowing us to intersect with both kinds of evil. She’s suffered plenty of horrors in her own existence, and we get glimpses into those, but she’s also survived by performing more horrors, or outsourcing them to the homicidal pedophile that serves her. Her existence parallels that of Oskar, our human protagonist, who is so dispossessed from his parents and so abused by bullies that becoming violent himself seems a natural thing. When hitting back tears a bully’s ear, Oskar is exceptionally proud of himself – at least until Eli reduces his revenge down to “entertainment.” With an acute criticism of others and lack of self-criticism, Eli and Oskar never cease to reflect each other’s dangerous growth in interesting ways.

All these descriptions of a bleak and hazardous world may leave you unprepared to learn that the novel is a love story. Let the Right One In (or “Let Me In” in certain printings) is a tale of loneliness, with Eli and Oskar’s differing solitudes leaving them in desperate need of companionship. Is this a romantic love story? Not necessarily, and it never reduces to raw hormones. But it isn’t regular friendship, nor a Familiar-like service. It’s something altogether jagged, two children needing company, interaction, to laugh or to play, to do things without having reciprocity expected. It’s one relationship to fill up a profound lack of relationships across their lives. When it turns out that (view spoiler) And that is just another complication for keeping something he wants, just like learning Eli has infected and killed others. His moral revulsion is a barrier he’s inclined to work through out of this loneliness.

For those who don’t want a mere story of two kids bonding in a harsh world, the novel is still a host of horrors. Eli must feed, and her former servant descends into stalking the locals. When we’re introduced to a bar full of people who’ve never gotten on with their lives fast enough, we know some won’t live to fix their mistakes. Detectives pursue what seem like an eccentric serial murderer. If Eli’s discovered, she’ll be slain. If Oskar’s left alone, there’s almost an equal chance he’ll die in the cruelty of other boys. As the perfect closing line of the novel puts it, “It’s probably different when you’re young.”(less)

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May 25, 2011 Krys rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: medium-length-book, horror-thriller, vampires, third-person-narrative, book-group-read, read-in-2011, stand-alone

I'm trying to figure out how best to talk about this one. I started reading Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist for a book group with my girlfriends. I did not choose this one, however, I have been looking forward to it for a while. It's supposed to be the scariest, best Vampire tale. Ever. Period. End of story.

For the record, it's terrifying. So much so that I couldn't read it at night. It freaked me out too much. That said, it's not the vampire parts of the book that I found disturbi...more I'm trying to figure out how best to talk about this one. I started reading Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist for a book group with my girlfriends. I did not choose this one, however, I have been looking forward to it for a while. It's supposed to be the scariest, best Vampire tale. Ever. Period. End of story.

For the record, it's terrifying. So much so that I couldn't read it at night. It freaked me out too much. That said, it's not the vampire parts of the book that I found disturbing.

Wow. Trying to figure out how to talk about this... it's really tough. The book is about a small suburb in Sweden called Blackeberg. A boy named Oskar lives with his mother in an apartment complex. He goes to school and is frequently bullied by a group of boys there. He befriends the neighbour girl, Eli, whose strange quirks keep him fascinated. She only comes out at night, she insists on being invited over thresholds, and she continues to look like shes wasting away one night only to appear lush and healthy the next. Oskar is concerned... he's falling in love with her... but he doesn't know how to handle it.

Sounds simple right? I'm afraid it's a lot more complex than that. There are tons of side plots, side characters, and side intrigues that make up this whole book. It's like watching the ending of Requiem for a Dream... it's frenetic and daunting in places and very, very haunting. One of the side lines comes from a man named Hakan, who lives with Eli. Hakan. Is. Grotesque. I do not like him. I did not like reading him. In fact, every time he came onto the page I was knocked out of the book. Viscerally knocked out. If I tell you why it would ruin a major plot in the book... so I won't. Just, trust me. He's a creepy, bloody, character. I did not enjoy reading him. I wanted him to be out of this book. He ruined a good chunk of the story for me.

That said, the relationship between Oskar and Eli saves the book. It's sweet and tender while in tandem remains frightening. You never know what is going to happen. If it was just concentrated on them (as I am told the Swedish film is) I would have loved it... 5 star book. But, the constancy of Hakan's presence in the book drags it down to a 2. I hated him. So much. Considering that, I'll give the book a 3.5 out of 5 stars. It's nothing I would ever pick up again (I don't really need to, the images are burned in my brain). However, I will be seeing the movie, at least the Swedish one. The American version looks wah-wah... even with the inclusion of Chloe Moretz.

yeah. 3.5 out of 5 stars. Sounds right. If you want something really effing creepy... this would probably do it.

- review courtesy of www.bibliopunkk.net (less)

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About John Ajvide Lindqvist

John Ajvide Lindqvist (Johan Ajvide Lindqvist) is a Swedish author who grew up in Blackeberg, the setting for Let the Right One In. Wanting to become something awful and fantastic, he first became a conjurer, and then was a stand-up comedian for twelve years. He has also written for Swedish television.

Let the Right One In was a bestseller in Sweden and was named Best Novel in Translation 2005 in N...more

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Quotes from Let the Right One In

“Are you OLD?"
"No. I'm only twelve. But I've been that for a long time.” — 59 people liked it

“Real love is to offer your life at the feet of another.” — 45 people liked it

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