Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Review

Hey guys! Just when I had reserved time to blog, my internet went away. Hopefully it can be reinstated soon but for now, I'm at the library writing up some posts to be released every couple of days. The good news is, without internet to distract me I've had time to read up a storm! Today is the review for the great book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith.

Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.

I was really quite excited to dig into this book! I had requested it at the library and asked to borrow it from some friends so my best friend bought it for me for my birthday! I loved this book. I love history but I actually haven't read a lot about Abraham Lincoln. I knew some of the basics that everyone else knows about the 16th president but nothing really about his life or where he was from. This book made me want to get a biography of Abe to cross check what I read in the book! Maybe the biography won't tell me if he chased vampires to avenged his loved ones, but it will tell me if Abe was engaged before Mary Todd and how many children he had and what happened to each one.

This book was written by someone who had been handed Abraham Lincoln's personal journals and who had been instructed to write what really happened. The author uses stories and facts about Lincoln and mixes them with "passages" from Lincoln's journals. I expected this to read just like a journal but I was happy to have the author's voiced mixed in to explain a circumstance or term.

This book shows Abraham throughout his life, from the time he shot his first turkey to his death. Just like in life, there is a flow throughout the book, its not constant violence or dazzling speeches. It shows him as a happy child with his mother, to an adolescent burning with rage, to a young politician losing his first race. We see Abe in love, as a doting father, and a stressed president trying to lead this nation through a civil war, a war that is more than what the history books tell you.

I personally really liked this book. I liked the author's voice. The way characters showed up again and again throughout the book and the twist at the end that I won't say anymore about! I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history or who is trying to get someone else interested in history, I know I'm curious about Honest Abe's life now. There is violence but it isn't gory and it isn't constant. You feel for Abraham and you care about what happens to him. I can't wait to see the movie in just a couple weeks. This is a book you want to pass around your friends so you can discuss it!

If you've read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter leave me a comment and let me know what you thought about it! I thought it was quite amazing, do you agree? Or are you planning on reading it now, after reading my review?