Charlaine Harris: Dead Until Dark

I was in the midst of my previous read book when one of my sisters made me pinkie swear to read Dead Until Dark next. She has not discovered LibraryThing yet and the incredible feeling of finding a great amount of people who enjoy the very same books as you. This has made her eager to make fans of the series out friends and family. I remember those dreadful days hoping someone even liked the same genre as me, or read books at all. My sister has been quite happy since I picked up this book. I was halfway through it when she became happier, though.

She won. My sister did the happy dance. I am a new fan to this series, or at least for now the first book. I enjoyed it enough that I had to go out and buy the second one, Living Dead in Dallas, when I was just halfway into Dead Until Dark. I had been having trouble reading lately but put everything on hold to read this book. I have been exhausted and low on sleep even but I read until long past dark and closer to the morning hours one night until the very last page was read. Do not ask me what was said on the very last page. I was far too sleepy to be able to remember. I simply remember feeling this was a very good book and that I was glad to have a copy of book two on my shelves already.

I watch very little television, do not have cable, direct TV, or a sort of box for my tv set. This means I have not seen the "True Blood" tv series, either. One of my sister's and my summer plans is to watch it on dvd.

I had a discussion earlier in the week with yet another family member reading this book about what genre it belongs in. Because of the vampires one might want to place it in fantasy. The person I was discussing this with felt the genre well-suited for this book but as someone whose read fantasy and enjoys it, I disagreed. My reasoning was that it just didn't feel like fantasy. I explained to the person that I certainly wouldn't tag it as that on LibraryThing. I tagged it as fiction because it had more of a fiction ring to it. It was more mainstream. The best genre I could use to describe this book is mystery, an actual sub-division, but the best none the less. Opinions?

Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan: The Strain

I have never seen Pan's Labyrinth so it is my thought that I could not fully appreciate receiving an advanced readers copy of a book co-written by Guillermo del Toro as well as others may. It's a movie which often caught my curiosity but has greatly more since my reading of this book.

The Strain is the first book in a trilogy which starts out as being set in New York. I loved this. Reading about a place I have been was amazing and though del Toro and Hogan describe the setting to a 'T' the story was further exciting to me throughout the book because of this. I knew all about, for example, those rats, which I could only nod along to as I read. Do not misjudge me and think I feel the subject of rats exciting. They terrify me. Perhaps having been to New York and seen the rats saved me from going over the edge in my reading of this book. The Strain was quite the frightening story.

It all began with a grandmother's rather chilling tale to her grandson. I could not believe what I was reading. I was impressed. I was also worried. The Strain could only after all become scarier. Scarier it much became and I found myself thinking of what had before my reading of this book been the scariest book I had ever read.

Stephen King's A Bag of Bones may not be that scary to some but it had been enough that aside from reading Different Seasons I had put a black pen to the author's name in a mental note to myself to never read his books again. The Strain went past that but unlike A Bag of Bones, I was glued and the book had me unable to stop reading. I was unable, even, to not wish I had not so very long to wait for the book that would follow this.

The Strain terrified me so that I could not sit in a lit room without an open door. I could not read without my cats jumping onto my lap or poking their heads up from where their bodies were hidden below making me scream. I could not sleep for fear of monsters. I finished reading this book feeling it was the ultimate scary book. Never have I read a vampire book as half as frightening as this one.

Bravo, del Toro and Hogan! I cannot wait for the next one. I passed along my copy of The Strain to a friend who enjoys scary books and movies like none other I know. I await their call and hearing of their trouble sleeping at night.