What Not To Read

So as most of you know, vampires are everywhere.  EVERYWHERE!  Of course not in real life, I mean on the shelf.  The shelf of a bookstore the shelf of a movie store--vampires have officially taken over main topic events, and while sometimes it works I find it often does not.  Especially when you read a vampire novel that has been translated from another language.

Now you have to understand I didn't choose this book (what book you ask? well you will find out).  It was left in my apartment's "free book" book shelf.  The cover and the title caught my eye, so I thought, hey, why not?  "Let Me In" (aka "Let The Right One In") sounds like it could be a good book about something, and on the cover there are two kids, holding hands looking towards the woods standing in snow.  For some reason it didn't dawn on me that this would be a vampire book.  Mainly because most vampire books are about sex and stuff.  Is this one?  I don't know, I didn't finish it.

Here is why this book doesn't work.  It is translated from it's original language, Swedish, to English.  Whenever you translate a book of course there are going to be misunderstandings; however, there have been many novels translated from one language to another and have been translated well - this just isn't.  Whenever I read a book I read it for enjoyment.  As soon as I find myself with a pen in my hand, scratching out words and rewriting the sentences in the correct tense, I realize it's time to give up.

Another reason why this doesn't work is because it's slightly disturbing.  I mean, I get it.  It's hard to put in a shock and awe factor in today's modern, fucked up society, BUT that doesn't mean you should be gross and write about messed up things.  Try being creative instead of writing about how this 12 year old boy hates life so much he imagines himself killing people (it's with fleshy details).  I got to Chapter "Friday" before I gave up and decided I didn't need this.

If this sounds interesting to you, go ahead and read it.  Maybe let me know how it goes, but I'm fairly certain it loses a lot in translation.