Review: The Radleys

The Radleys by Matt Haig

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I didn't like vampire books. I probably would have if it wasn't for the fact that Twilight was such a horrible book and the nauseating love of 13 year old girls for it made it such a sensation. Realizing this, I had decided to give vampires another chance. I never found the right book, though.

When I saw this on the Goodreads Giveaways list, I was intrigued. It was vampires...but non-practicing and trying-to-be-mere-human vampires. How would that work? What would happen to them? How do you pull it off when you have no reflection? I liked the sound of the book and thought it might pull me out of my anti-vampire rut. I was thrilled to win a copy and hopefully optimistic when I began reading.

Good news - it worked! This family (the Radleys) was a group of misfits trying desperately to belong. Illness, lack of loving connections, a sense of forced propriety and an awareness that something was wrong...the kids were miserable, the father was longing for an old but not forgotten life and the mother was desperate to pretend everything was as it wasn't. And then Clara, in a moment of danger, transforms without intention or understanding and the family is left to make sense of a new life that is also an old life. In the time since the parents became abstainers, vampiric life has changed and the family needs to figure out how to act.

I really liked it. In fact, I stayed up late two nights in a row, unable to put the book down. I think I'm finally over the horridness of Twilight and can welcome the vampire genre into my library!



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