sixty: let the right one in

i finally finished let the right one in by john ajvide lindqvist. i had first heard about the novel when the movie adaptation of the same name came out late last year. the novel was originally written in swedish and the movie was done by a swedish director. the rights of the film have now been bought by one of the major hollywood companies. it is set to be directed by the same person who directed cloverfield.
it took me much longer than i expected to actually finish the novel. the story is essentially about the relationship between a young boy and a neighborhood vampire, but beware this is no twilight knock off. on the cover, there are comparisons to stephen king, which i think probably ring true. as i have never read a stephen king novel, i do not know for sure, but it certainly had the dark overtones that i suspect a stephen king novel would contain. this novel dealt with some pretty gritty subjects - pedophilia, violent school yard bullying, revenge, and murder. while there were also some heart warming moments in the novel, most of it raised the hairs on the back of my neck (there was an especially awful moment that involved a number of cats towards the end). i would only recommend this novel to vampire-stephen-king-lovers, the story is just not compelling enough for those of us that do not enjoy a good scare. i still have not seen the film, but i have high expectations (it got rave reviews when it first came out).