A review by seattlefraggle
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan

2.0

For the past few months I've been intensely focused on studying for the JLPT. I needed some extremely light fare in my leisure reading, just something to occupy my mind while riding on trains. My expectation of the The Strain was low impact, B-horror schlock and it definitely lives up to that standard. The "problem" is that it isn't very good. Instead, the novel reads like a padded out screenplay (which is essentially what it is). The opening premise is excellent, and deliciously creepy, but the plot is wispy, the characters are barely sketched out stereotypes and the prose is laughably poor. I still kinda weirdly enjoyed it though. I don't know, perhaps it was just the sort of simple airplane novel I needed during to relax my mind during study breaks. So far though, I'm disappointed in the TV series. With some good writing to flesh out the bones of this story I thought it would make a pretty good Walking Dead style show. Maybe not.