The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan - finally a book with "real" vampires!

My rate: ☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠ (8/10 Skulls) 

  

Original Title: The Strain (The Strain Triology #1)

Norwegian Title: Trusselen

Written by: Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Genre: Thriller

Written for: Adult

Pages: 423

Publisher: William Morrow & Company

Published: 2009

Published in Norway: 2009

My copy: 2009 (Hardcover)

Norwegian Publisher: Versal Forlag

I read it: May 02 - May 28, 2012

     Source: Bought

(Goodreads)

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing.

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city - a city that includes his wife and son - before it is too late.

My Review

Vampires doesn't excist ... or do they?

Something is horrible wrong when a plane lands on JFK Airport. Of course it's nothing reall special about it since planes lands there all day and night. But what's wrong with this plane is because it's completely quiet. Nobody seems to be inside. It's quiet as death and surrounded by darkness. Something terrible has happened but what?

Lately I've been a bit tired of vampirers in books and movies. The reason is Twilight. Because of Twilight, vampires has now become love sick stalkers. And they sparkle in the sun. It's stupid! I want vampires to be dangerous and violent. Like they used to be in the good old days!

After all the vampire hysteria lately about Twilight etc I needed a break from everything that had to do with vampires. And it did me good 'cause eventually I started to miss them again. And when I got to know about this book, The Strain, I just had to check it out. Especially since del Toro is one of the writers. I discovered his name the first time I saw Pan's Labyrinth which is one of my fave movies. 

This is finally a book about revengefull, blood thursty and dangerous vampires and that makes my heart melt. Reading this book reminded me a little about the tv-series X - files (My all time fave Tv-series!) It had kind of the same atmosphere, if you know what I mean and that made me happy. The book was pretty dark which I loved!

This is the first book in the The Strain - triology and of course I will get the next one as well! And the book made me like vampires again! Yay!

Booktrailer

House of Night "Marked" by P.C. and Kristin Cast - good start for a refreshing vampire series

My Rate: ☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠ (8/10 Skulls)

---

Original Title: Marked (House of Night #1)

Norwegian Title: Merket

Written by: P.C. and Kristin Cast

Genre: fantasy/vampires

Written for: YA

Pages: 348
Publisher: Atom Books
Published: 2007

Published in Norway: 2010

My copy: 2009
Norwegian Publisher: Cappelen Damm

I read it: June 17 - June 21, 2011
Source: Bought

---

Back of the book

So the bad news was that I’d have to move into the House of Night, a private boarding school, known by all my friends as the vampyre finishing school, where I would spend the next four years going through bizarre and unnamerable physical changes, as well as a total and permanent life shake-up. And that’s only if the whole process didn’t kill me.

But the good news was that I wouldn’t have to take the geometry test tomorrow.

When sixteen-year-old Zoey is marked by the Tracker, she knows her old life is over. Now she has to leave her friends and family to join the House of Night school, where there’s only one subject Zoey needs to study. Vampyre 101.

Of course, there’s always a catch, and this one’s nice and simple: if you fail, you die …

Praise for the House of Night Series

‘Totally un-put-downable’ Sugar

‘Fast paced, funny and exciting’ Trashionista

‘Well-written, entertaining and has an exciting,

original take on the Vampire genre’ GirlieGossip.com

---

Changes can be though. Especially when it depends on your own life …

Zoey is an ordinary High School girl. She’s 16 and one day, all of the sudden, she get marked by a Tracker at school. She gets this mark on her forehead and everyone knows what that means. She will slowly turn into a vampire. That means she has to leave both family and friends, and has to start at a school called House of Night. A place everyone knows of. Zoey must spend four years there to be a real vampire, but if her body rejects or don’t accept the changes, she will die for real. As soon as she comes to House of Night, she notices that everyone there is very curious about her. ‘Cause her mark is a bit different than their own. Why?

Numbers of times I’ve been in the book stores and chosen other series and other books than House of Night. ‘Cause each time I just thought …meh …it’s probably not for me and got other books instead. The reason is the book covers. I’ve always thought it was probably just series about vampires who constantly thought about sex and only talked about it too. But then I’m also curious about all these YA – vampire/fantasy genre. It’s gotten so popular. Almost everyone reads YA fantasy these days. It’s sort of a phenomenon. And I just get curious about all these series that keep coming. I want to know what people are talking about. 

Even though the covers is a turn – off (a bit tired of beautiful girls on almost every vampire/fantasy books. It would be nice with something new!), I took the chance to try the first book. Just to see how I would like it before I eventually get more books of the series. I’m always skeptical when I try new series … The way this book was written didn’t impress me much. It felt like it was a school essay or something (you know what I mean?). But Stephenie Meyers Twilight was worse than a school essay and I hated her visions of so-called vampires. And even though House of Night is just a little better written, I also thought it has a better story, character and vampire myth. It’s something refreshing about this series. I liked to read how they become a vampire. They get a mark on their forehead instead of getting sucked on their necks (still I like that old version better, sucking blood and dies in the sun), I still like the old fashion vampires better than the moderns. But it’s okay to read about modern vampires (as long as they don’t sparkle in the sun!), 

It is okay for me that a book isn’t all that very well written. Even it’s a bit childish written, I must admit that the story was very exciting and there were times that I was really struggling to put down the book. The few times I did it, it didn’t take a lot of time before I picked it up again and just had to continue reading. I wanted to know what would happen next even though some of the twists was easy to see before they happened. But I liked Zoey and her sarcasm very good. She makes some lame boobs and ass jokes but most of her thoughts are fun. She reminds me a lot of me when it comes to her thinking; the sarcasm and the negativity.

What I liked a lot about House of Night is that I had always thought that cats only was friends of the witches but in House of Night the cats are also friends of vampires. As a fan of cats I got very charmed by the relationship between Zoey and the cat named Nala.

House of Night series is created by mother and daughter team, which also made me sceptical about this series before I started reading it ’cause I thought it maybe was a cool thing only for them to do. Sort of a girls thing and that’s it. But I got very surprised in a positive way of how addicted of this book even though the writing didn’t impress me much. And although good writing is important it is also important that the book you read is entertaining. A book must entertain the reader and Marked really entertained me. The pages almost turned by themselves. And reading at night, I tried to put down the book but I couldn’t sleep ‘cause I wanted to read more and read several hours straight. ‘Cause I liked Zoey a lot and her new friends. While I was reading, I wished that there was a school like House of Night in real life. That would be exciting! And the next time I visit the book store I’m sure I’ll get book two and probably more books from this series!’Cause I want to know what’s gonna happen next.

---