Review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Goodreads Summary:

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.

My Review:
I've seen some ridiculously odd comments about this book. Like questioning the historical accuracy of the time period and the portrayal of Lincoln. Well, if you're going to go into the book with that kind of attitude just stop. Put down the book, return it to the library, give it away to a friend. This book was not meant for you, it's not a vehicle for you to prove the superiority of your knowledge of the time period. I mean:

The title alone should have been a dead giveaway- unless you're okay with and believe that Lincoln hunted down vampires and saved the Union, but the rest of it was just awfully inaccurate crap. Like, he did slay a vampire, it just happened in 1842 instead of 1823. (Or whatever) Look, just go back to mommy's basement and work on your perfectly scaled replica of The Battle of Bull Run. 


Back to the review, it was good, but not great. It was a fun book, but you almost got the sense that the author wrote it thinking, "Movie Deal!" In other words, it kind of reads like a (good) novelization of a movie- like it's a book based on a movie, not the other way around. But, it's a good summer type read. And yet, you almost get the feeling that this might be one of those books that the movie will be better than the book.


Overall Review: 3 stars
Genre Review: 3 1/2 coffins