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A review by dreaj
The Radleys by Matt Haig
4.0
Read for 52 Book Club Challenge 2024 #5 Magical Realism.
Really enjoyed Matt Haig's amusing imagining of what it would be like if vampires lived in suburbia. He styles vampires as "blood addicts" (with their own Abstainer's Manual) and asks interesting questions about addiction and tamping down your true nature just to fit in with society and your partner. But the comparison causes some difficult answers as in real life, addiction masks a person's true nature and tends to wreak havoc. There is no easy middle ground...
Perhaps, I am reading too much into this breezy novel which wreaks gore, murder and mayhem in suburbia with gay abandon, and name-checks a lot of musicians and artists as vampires! A fun read, even if I had doubts about the implied approval of a lifestyle that feeds an "addiction" (not to mention the police's pragmatic accommodation of them...well, as long as they don't kill too many humans...!)
Really enjoyed Matt Haig's amusing imagining of what it would be like if vampires lived in suburbia. He styles vampires as "blood addicts" (with their own Abstainer's Manual) and asks interesting questions about addiction and tamping down your true nature just to fit in with society and your partner. But the comparison causes some difficult answers as in real life, addiction masks a person's true nature and tends to wreak havoc. There is no easy middle ground...
Perhaps, I am reading too much into this breezy novel which wreaks gore, murder and mayhem in suburbia with gay abandon, and name-checks a lot of musicians and artists as vampires! A fun read, even if I had doubts about the implied approval of a lifestyle that feeds an "addiction" (not to mention the police's pragmatic accommodation of them...well, as long as they don't kill too many humans...!)