Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

John Ajvide Lindqvist’s original Swedish novel resulted in a successful Swedish movie (soon to be remade by Hollywood) and is a clever and surprisingly moving take on vampire myth, which has strong themes of loneliness, alienation and the power of friendship. As Oskar tries to come to terms with this, Eli is having problems when her guardian/helper is captured trying to secure food for her, leaving her having to hunt for herself and bringing her into conflict with a group of the estate’s residents determined to stop her. Eli is a strange girl – ignorant of things like Rubik’s Cubes, Oskar only ever sees her at night on the estate playground and she never seems to feel the Swedish cold – even when she’s out in the snow in only thin clothes.Īs the two of them become friends, Oskar’s confidence increases, but when he asks Eli to be his girlfriend, she reveals a secret: she’s actually a vampire who needs fresh blood to survive. Then a new child moves into the flat next door with her father. His only interest is in newspaper cuttings about murders and violent deaths and he spends his time pretending to be a killer. Overweight and violently bullied, he leads a lonely existence in a permanent state of fear that’s left him incontinent. It’s 1981 and 12 year-old Oskar lives in a poor housing estate near Stockholm with his mother. Now a major feature film, Let The Right One In is a disturbing and brilliant reworking of the vampire legend, and a deeply moving fable about rejection, friendship and loyalty.

As a romance blossoms between them, Oskar discovers Eli’s dark secret – she is a 200 year old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood. Twelve-year-old Oskar is an outsider bullied at school, dreaming about his absentee father, bored with life on a dreary housing estate.

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist