The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman

Stars: 4.5 out of 5

This is how vampires should be written about! If you like your Twilight type of glamourous vampires who glitter in sunlight, this book is definitely not for you. The vampires Joey describes here are monsters. They are cruel, they are hideous (unless they put the glamor on), and they have very questionable morals. They are also “alive” and interesting.

The author also accomplished a seemingly impossible feat – he showed us all the horrors that these vampires inflict upon unsuspecting humans… then made me care about the monsters. Because we get to know them. We get to know their stories and their interactions. Because they don’t usually “peel” the people they prey upon. Granted, it’s not because of some high moral imperative not to kill, but purely because of sense of self-preservation. Kill enough people, the authorities will notice and come investigate. They your underground home is crawling with cops and there is an angry mob topside ready to kill you with pitchforks and burn you. Not to mention that sunshine is deadly to these vampires.

Plus, the children are truly horrifying. I mean even in the beginning, when we don’t know anything about them, there is something profoundly unsettling about these little vampires. Something that makes your skin crawl. Kudos to the author for instilling this subtitle feeling of wrongness and slowly cranking up the intensity. I was truly horrified by the end of this book, especially considering the ending.

Also, this book is dark and unapologetic. Nothing is sugarcoated here. So if you are squeamish, you might want to skip some of the descriptions. When I said that these vampires were monsters, I wasn’t exaggerating. Theirs is a cruel world where the strong survive because they are willing to be ruthless and eliminate the competition, but also where a monster can find a broken family they can count on. That’s why the final betrayal in this book hurts so much, because Margaret’s group were family, as dysfunctional as that family was, and seeing their fate was heartbreaking. 

I am not usually into vampires, but I loved this book. I think I might checkout other book by this author, because I liked his “voice” and his style.

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