Thursday, October 22, 2009

The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan

Horrible Amanda. I am NOT supposed to be checking out anymore books from the library but trying to go through the numerous unread books I own.

But then I saw The Strain at the library. And I caved. I mean it's PERFECT for the R.I.P. IV Challenge. And then I checked out even more books for Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon. Ok. I'm weak.

Anway, what a scary book! I had no clue it was a zombie/vampire thriller. I kept on wanting to close my eyes during the gory/scary parts...like in a movie. But that obviously doesn't work with a book.

I'll admit that it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I guess I was expecting a little more, hmmm, originality from the maker of Pan's Labyrinth. That said...it's still a fun book to scare the living daylights out of you.

And I do credit them for making a great merge between zombies and vampires and coming up with an ultra-scary character/monster.

P.S. This is the first book in a trilogy. I had no clue about that. (Apparently I need to pay more attention to these things.) Had I known, I probably wouldn't have picked it up just because I hate hate waiting for the next book in series. But yeah, I'll probably read the next two books when they come out. Because I NEED to know how it ends. Darn you book.

P.P.S. Am I the only one who wasn't too thrilled that the main character's name is Ephraim a.k.a. Eph. Kind of annoyed me in a mild weird way.

P.P.P.S. I LOVE that it takes place in New York City because the whole rat thing was so insanely creepy. If you don't know what I'm talking about...read the book. I seriously get creeped out when I see rats in the park and the dogs try and chase them. Although we have bigger problems with raccoons and skunks (yes...I live in Manhattan). And I also found out, while reading this, about a cool piece of NYC history. I had no clue about the abandoned City Hall subway stop. I had to stop reading and look it up. Check out the cool pictures.

Also Reviewed by:

A Book Blog. Period.
Devourer of Books
Medieval Bookworm
Shelf Love
Minds Alive on the Shelves

6 comments:

  1. So do they call him Eph throughout the book? That could get annoying. I've got the audiobook version of his on hold at my library. Thanks for the review :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yah, the nickname of 'Eph' was sort of annoying throughout the book, especially on the audiobook.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a coincidence! We posted about the same book on the same day but with two different feelings about it lol. I'm glad to hear a good review of it & I'm glad you liked it. What did you think about the tongue? It kinda made me laugh ;/

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's a pretty cool station -- reminds me of Lex Luthor's lair in the original "Superman" movie. Although that was in Metropolis of course. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sounds interesting. I could probably read about just vamps but the zombie part is way more than I can handle.

    ReplyDelete