Book Summary (from Goodreads.com)
Indiana, 1818.
Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a
nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's
been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."
"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.
Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal
affliction was actually the work of a vampire.
When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.
While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing
millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has
remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth
Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln,
and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.
Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical
style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true
life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the
hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in
the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.
My Review
So...yeah, I read it. As I
mentioned on The Help review, I try to read the books before watching the
movie, and I know I will go and see this one with my boyfriend. And he read the
book and liked it, so I said why not.
The story is presented in three acts: The Boy, parts of Lincoln as a
boy, and teenager, the struggle of this family, and off course, first
encounters with vampires; The Vampire Hunter, Lincolns as an adult, changing
jobs, falling in love, being heart broken...and trying to kill every vampire in
America; and President, the road to the White house, Civil War, detractors and
off course assassination.
Did I enjoy the book? Yes, is an easy read, and the parts that are
non-fiction are (apparently, I checked some of the facts, not everything) well
researched. I even stumble upon this blog with a nice entry of fact versus
fiction in the book.
Another thing that I liked is the way the author intertwined the vampire
side of the story with the facts. When you are reading the “excerpts” of Lincoln’s
journal, sometimes he will be talking about daily life, the love of his life,
his kids...and then just like changing to talk about the weather, you see a
sentence talking about vampires.
I found it interesting how the author manage to present the Civil War as
not just the Southern States against the Union, but actually parties of
vampires taking sides, promoting or blocking abolition. Also the way he manages
to explain the deaths of several of the characters by “vampire poisoning”
instead of typhoid fever or tuberculosis, which are off course the real
reasons.
I also liked the type of vampires of this book; they are not all the
same, even though they all feed the same. They are not all pretty boys, they
are not all zombie liked. They are, as one of the characters puts it: like
another species, closer to human, and hence should not be judge all equally (I
paraphrased here, I didn’t mark my page, and I don’t feel like looking for the
exact quote.
However, it was not a book that made me urge to read it. Even though the
flow of the book is good and the story is well told, there is no WOW factor or moment
that forces you to keep reading through the night.
I realized that this is not the first book of the author, but I don’t
feel like giving Pride, Prejudice and Zombies a try (none of the 2 versions,
since apparently, 1 wasn’t enough). I think this new “genre” is just not for
me. I mean, I cannot see the allure in a book called Jane Slayer (Jane Eerie)
So, that’s it for this book, not great but not awful, and entertaining
read in all.
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