The Strain

The first book I am going to be talking about is The Strain by Guillermo del Toro. As I´ve said in my TBR for this month, I´ve owned this book for a while, but I hasn´t been until now that I´ve wanted to read it. When I first get this book I was so young, I think it came out in 2010 and around that period all I wanted to know about vampires was whether Bella Swan will chose Edward or Jacob.

A couple of weeks ago I organized my shelves and I found this book and a bunch of others that I´ve bought or have been given to me through the years so I am going to be reviewing all of them and all the new books I´ve purchased more recently, as well as all the Harry Potter series, cause in case you´ve been living under a rock there is a new Harry Potter book coming out this summer and I want to read it as soon as it come out. I also know is just the script of the play, but I am a huge Harry Potter fan so I cannot wait for it. I also want to do a review for the series, so there is that. 

However and moving into today´s topic, as I was saying before I started to rambled, I want to tell you about The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. First thing I have to say about this book is that I consider it to be a book that it´s perfect to read for non-books lovers, not that a book lover wouldn´t enjoy it, but being narrated as it is, it would be more enjoyed by non-book lovers. The narration is so explicit telling things that usually don´t need to be told, readers usually have a huge imagination and being so specific about all the details just cut our wings off. Anyway, this could also happen due the background of both of the writers: Guillermo del Toro is a well-known director, he has directed a lot of movies; the most recently being Crimson Peak. As for Chuck Hogan, he is a writer, but he had being working in television writing the scripts. 

So with regard to which I was just saying, I think this is so clearly meant to be a show or a movie, as later on was. I haven´t watch the show, but as far as the book concerns I can easily see it made into a show. And the show would be most likely very well done not just for the amazing director but, for the plot line. My point he is that not all books are meant to be shows (let´s give a clear example and name one such as Shadowhunters) and not all stories are meant to be books, like this one or the Maze Runner trilogy. 

Do not misunderstand me, I´ve enjoy the book. For me it was such a quick read even when it was a big book. There is something about the story that makes you want to keep reading even when the story is not going anywhere for pages and pages. This actually could have been much shorter than it is; I mean the whole central part of the book is a non-sense in which they are always doing the same. Not to mention the random appearance of character, that again might work for TV but not for a book.

I consider that in order to have a good book some order is needed. I love writing, in fact I would love to become a writer myself and I know that you have to know where your plot is going when the twists are going to happen and obviously, you need to have a deep knowledge of your characters: I do not see any of that in this book. For me it feels almost as if the authors were discovering the personality of the characters as the same time that they were discovering the plot. It was like the characters itself didn´t know them, and of course that through the course of the history character has to evolve but certainly there had to be some of the initial self in there. 

And talking about the characters, I think is impressive the amount of characters that they have. Actually it took me a while to realized who was the main character and I am not entirely sure I have got this one right.I think there are two main characters being the first one Eph and the second one being the bad vampire (sorry I read this book in Spanish and I do not think the translation of the name will turned back to what it was originally). And actually the one that I enjoyed most reading about it was the bad vampire. Maybe this is because we are not used to have so much darkness in literature related to vampires, to be fair we are used to Edward Cullen, Damon Salvatore and (not that he is that much on the book but what the hell he is one of my favorite vampires) Klaus Mikelson, whom all are dark but at the end they do the right thing by those their care about. So for once having this despicable character that cares about no one but him is quite refreshing.

About the storyline I´ve previously said that it was not exactly well organized but it´s not just that. It´s also the fact that there is not a plot at all for most of the book but the authors manage somehow to keep you reading until the book is over. So despite the fact that I haven´t like the book I have enjoy the reading process of it and at least for that it deserves: 

Have you read the book? I would really like to know your thought on it. Leave a comment down below. Also leave a comment if you want me to review some particular book. See you all next Friday.