Okbo Lover

Now how do I review this book without giving a lot away? I’d rather have you pick it up and investigate it yourself. Normally I don’t read thriller/horror books. The last one I’ve read was The Shining by Stephen King and that gave me the willies. The movie also gave me the willies (that bloody lady in the bathtub gave me nightmares when I was younger). One of the main reasons why I don’t pick up many horror books is, I may not find them scary. I prefer the visual aspect of it (ie; movies) in order for me to be creeped out. However in cases like The Shining, I was creeped out when I read it. Obviously meaning, the book was doing a great job and it’s a novel worth reading. The Strain does exactly the same thing.

There were dozens of parts in the book where I could feel the hair on my arms start to rise (no joke seriously) and with an eclipse featured in this novel and the recent one I’ve heard on the news (the solar one in Asia) I was creeped out times two. Then at the ending of the book I was creeped out times four. Yes, you get the idea. There are plenty of parts in the book where you’re thinking: “Oh jeeez what now? no no don’t do that! what are you doing? ohhh nooo don’t go down that way! hurry up and do it!” this book keeps you engrossed with every page you turn.

Action you ask? plenty of it! I like how this book just captures your attention immediately and best yet there are hardly any parts where the action stops. What I like about this book is, you get the sense of chaos about to errupt and you actually see it in development until things just hit the fan (so to speak) and by then it’s too late to do anything.

There’s plenty of unanswered questions and the ending leaves you with wanting a lot more. Unfortunately the second part of this trilogy is not to be released until 2010 (I’m not sure exactly when, they just gave out the year of its’ future release on the backflap of the book). So obviously, I will probably have to reread this book again when the second one comes out. It’s worth a second read though I think.

I’d have to say, this book does have certain similarities to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (there I gave you a hint on what this book entails) (But it’s not what you think!). You do have a Jonathan Harker, a Van Helsing type character, and even a Mina (not really though, sort of) which I found rather interesting and I wonder if the authors did that on purpose or it was just a creative fluke. The characters in the novels are all right and they are developing I think considering this is the first novel of a trilogy, perhaps you will see them develop more with the other two books. (I like Setrakian the most in my opinion).

I definitely do not recommend this book if you don’t like blood and gore. There’s a lot of it and it’s very graphic. But if you don’t mind, and if you like a good scare, this book does a great job of keeping you engrossed and making your skin crawl (in a good way).

I give this book a 10 out of 10 (yay! my first perfect 10 on this blog!)