Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer - Seth Grahame-Smith

The beginning of this book was a grabber, even though I have a knee jerk reaction to stories with writers as main characters. Grahame-Smith did not overdue the “writer finally living the dream” too much, in fact, the writer-narrator does not appear again after the introduction. So why have the introduction? Yet, I kept turning pages, so who am I to complain.

The entire book was readable and some parts were great—characters coming alive, plots twisting, and vivid action scenes. In other places the characters tasted like cardboard and the plot felt mandatory. What distracted me were the frequent quotations from historical and fictional historical documents. Each time this was done, I fell out of the story and had to jump back in. I should clarify that I read some of this on my Kindle for iPhone application and the rest on my Kindle. The screen size may have contributed to my reaction, because each section of quotations seemed to start a new page. Once I switched completely to my Kindle, the reading experience was better.

I am sure this faux history style was intentional and it seems many other readers enjoyed it. Personally, I like my historical fiction as Patrick O’Brian or Bernard Cornwell write it—a seamless immersion into the past.

The idea of Abraham Lincoln as a bad ass vampire slayer is cool. The book cover is the best. But as I read, I was slightly annoyed that all the great things Abraham Lincoln did were attributed to his hatred of vampires. I did not care for the ending, saw it coming a mile away, and hoped that it just wouldn’t go there.

I would recommend trying the sample download of the book. If you like the sample, the rest of the book will be a good read.