Discloser: I received this book courtesy of the Hachette Book Group
Book Description:
When Abraham Lincoln was nine, his mother died from an ailment called the 'milk sickness.' Only later did he learn that his mother's deadly affliction was actually the work of a local vampire, seeking to collect on Abe's father's debts. While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for reuniting the North with the South and abolishing slavery from our country, no one has ever understood his valiant fight for what it really was. Using Lincoln's personal journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of David McCullough, Grahame-Smith has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time--all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War, and uncovering the massive role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.
Review:
I was one of the many people who picked up Seth’s previous book (and the one that started this revisionist horror trend) Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. It seemed like a no brainer to me. Jane Austen: great; Zombies: great; Jane + zombies: somehow not so great. Jane ended up getting abridged/altered beyond what I could tolerate. But Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (AL:VH) promised not to trample all over a beloved classic while still throwing in a healthy dose of paranormal. Sounds like a much better fit. And for the most part it is.
With any good revisionist history stories, there has to be an element of believability; a part of the story that makes the reader, however briefly, wonder what if…? Seth Grahme-Smith delivered that suspended belief by seamlessly incorporating historical quotes, excerpts from letters, newspapers, and even masterfully retouched photographs into his novel that re-imagines our country’s 16th President as an axe-wielding vampire hunter of the highest order.
While AL:VH entertained with its depiction of the man, it stumbled somewhat in relating the boy. I’m not a Lincoln scholar by any means, but most of the non-source material passages of Abe as a boy (and even as a young man), feel false when compared with the quotes even used in this book. I understand that some liberties necessarily have to be taken with Lincoln’s history (loved ones murdered by vampires that spurs his lifelong pursuit to ‘kill ‘em all’) in order to create a hitherto unknown life spent hunting vampires, but I think they ended up mortally wounding the character of this great man.
There is no question as to the debt we as a nation owe this man for his role in abolishing slavery. Unfortunately, in AL:VH, his motives for a life spent fighting against slavery are no longer simply a recognition of the moral bankruptcy of man selling, but are marred somewhat selfishly by the insertion of a vampiric conspiracy to use slavery as a stepping stone for the eventual farming/harvesting of all mankind.
I do have to tip my hat to Mr. Grahme-Smith for weaving fact and fiction together in a mostly successful way, for delivering an entertaining bloodbath that re-imagining some of history’s most notorious figures as the monsters they were, and for making me appreciate the “…life that hardly needed vampires to make it incredible.”
Sexual Content: References to sex, prostitution, and homosexuality.
My Rating (out of 5):
Click HERE to read an excerpt of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Product Details
Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (March 2, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0446563080
- ISBN-13: 978-0446563086
Disagree with my review? Email me your review for this or any other book I reviewed and I might use it for 2nd Opinion Review
I was shocked at how much sense this concept made when the author talked about. I went to a book signing for this not too long ago and he said that because of Lincoln's 200th bday last year there were a ton of Abe books in the front of bookstores. There were also a large amount of Twilight books front and center. After seeing this a few times, he decided to put them together :)
ReplyDeleteGreat review! I can't wait to finish the book!
Tara SG -- 25hourbooks.com
When I saw this book a couple of weeks ago I thought "okay, that's interesting". *snicker* Even after your review I'm just not sure I want to read it. My daughter is ten, and she LOVES Abe Lincoln. She learned about him in first grade and since then she's thought he was awesome. We went to Greenfield Village where they have one of the courthouse buildings he went to trial in as a young lawyer. It's just the building as it was with benches. She just wanted to go in and sit because he'd been there. BAHAHAHAHA So, it's hard for me to imagine a book that fictionalizes him, you know?
ReplyDeleteHi Abigail - I have no doubt that this book is just okay. I was kind of hoping it would stun you with its brilliance, but I'm not surprised by your review either. Oh well, I think this idea could work much better as a film instead of a book. I'll pass on it then.
ReplyDeleteWell I have my doubts. If some of the ya readers read this, will they believe it is true?? 20 yrs from now will Abe be remembered for vampires??
ReplyDeleteIt is a terrific concept and I would read but just hope it does not change history..LOL
misskallie2000 at yahoo dot com
Tara SG - That's a new bit of trivia for me. I wonder where he got the idea to give Jane some zombies?
ReplyDeleteMoonsanity - Your daughter sounds like a smart cookie. I'm betting she won't be appreciating the creative license taken with Honest Abe anytime soon.
Rebecca - The book trailer is fantastic, kinda a mini movie itself. I would love to see this as a film. I know P&P&Z is already being adapted. Couldn't finish that one as a book, but on the big screen...could be fun.
Misskallie2000 - I'm ashamed to admit there were parts in this book where I wasn't sure what was fact or fiction. I shutter to think what the next generation will make of it.
Hello Abigail:
ReplyDeleteI liked P&P&Z, though I think they've taken the whole thing a bit too far. One novel was, well, a novel idea, unique and fun, but now with Sense & Sensibility and Sea Monsters and this, it's a bit overdone. Oh well!
This trend isn't showing any signs of slowing. Have you heard about Android Karenina?
ReplyDelete