The Radleys by Matt Haig

I found out about this book through my trusty Entertainment Weekly a while back and finally got around to reading it. This book is such a departure from any vampire books/TV that I have seen. I almost didn't know how I felt about it because it was so different. It was not teen angst-y like Twilight, or overly smutty like True Blood, and definitely not dark and twisted like an Anne Rice novel. The intriguing part of this book was that it was that it reads like a typical family drama...except the family is full of vampires.

Publishers Weekly Summary: Dr. Peter Radley and his wife, Helen, have fled wild London for the village of Bishopthorpe, where they live an outwardly ordinary life. The Radleys, who follow the rules of The Abstainer's Handbook (e.g., "Be proud to act like a normal human being"), haven't told their 15-year-old vegan daughter, Clara, and 17-year-old son, Rowan, who's troubled by nightmares, that they're really vampires. A crisis occurs when a drunken classmate of Clara's, Stuart Harper, attacks her on her way home from a party and inadvertently awakens the girl's blood thirst. Peter's call for help to his brother, Will, a practicing vampire, leads to scary consequences.


This is another one of those books where I went in with a certain set of expectations and emerged with my hair blown back. This book was not what I expected! It was a really thoughtful story about a set of vampire parents who are trying to deny their vampiric roots (they're "abstainers"). I don't want to get into too much detail about the story because this is one story that I think you should read without knowing too much about ahead of time. But the vampire aspect of this book really made this book special to me. First, it made me want to read it because I'm alllll about vampires...BUT it provided a very human aspect to vampires that I haven't witnessed in other vampire novels.

Vampires are always bitching about how they hate being undead, but these vampires actually did something about it! They abstained. And a really wonderful story came out of it! Throughout the book, we read passages out of the Abstainers Handbook and learn more about the history of vampires and how they operate. There was also a quiet humor threaded throughout the book. This wasn't a particularly funny book, but there were parts that made me snicker a bit. The downside: there were times that the wording got a little heavy, but I'll chalk that up to the author trying to stick with the gothic theme that goes with vampire stories.

Overall, it was a solid book. I really enjoyed it...but I kinda wish that I hadn't bought it and instead gotten this one from the library. 

TIDBIT: Apparently they've re-released this book (it came out in late 2010) and have issued it as a YA novel. Um no. This is not young adult. Also, I read an article that there's to be a follow-up novel. I have an eye out for it...

Rank: B-