the strain

Author: Guillermo del Toro and someone else

I like reading about vampires. I'll admit it. Anne Rice created the vampire world for me (and probably most of the vampire-reading population) so in my head she represents the truest of the vampire lore. Everything else I read is compared to the world of Louis and Lestat.

Other vampire worlds that have only minor modifications to hers don't bother me as long as the core set of values remains the same and most of the same rules apply.

The Strain is like the vampire alternate universe and I don't buy it. As far as vampires go this book stinks. Being a vampire is the result of a "worm" that multiplies and circulates in the body (i.e the strain), vampires can't cross bodies of water unless assisted by a human, and they don't even bite you with teeth! They have a stinger that shoots 6 feet out of their mouth to suck your blood. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Guillermo, I love your warped brain but this is absurd. You've messed with a genre that has been messed with too much already. If you called them zombies it would have been more appropriate. You can call them what you want, but if I'm going to read the next two books in the trilogy they're not going to be vampires to me.

That being said, this book was way more entertaining than the two bombs we tried to read for book club: Tropic of Cancer (beyond torture) and the Diary of Anais Nin (beyond boring).