The Radleys: a novel by Matt Haig

Title: The Radleys: a novel
Author: Matt Haig
Publication: FreePress (2010)
ISBN 9781439194010
Format: Hardcover
Price: $25.00
Series: Yes.

Just about everyone knows a family like the Radleys. Many of us grew up next door to one. They are a modern family, averagely content, averagely dysfunctional, living in a staid and quiet suburban English town. Peter is an overworked doctor whose wife, Helen, has become increasingly remote and uncommunicative. Rowan, their teenage son, is being bullied at school, and their anemic daughter, Clara has recently become a vegan. They are typical, that is, save for one devastating exception: Peter and Helen are vampires and have--for seventeen years--been abstaining by choice from a life of chasing blood in the hope that their children could live normal lives.
One night, Clara finds herself driven to commit a shocking--and disturbingly satisfying--act of violence, and her parents are forced to explain their history of shadows and lies. A police investigation is launched that uncovers a richness of vampire history heretofore unknown to the general public. And when the malevolent and alluring Uncle Will, a practicing vampire, arrives to throw the whole house into temptation and turmoil and unleashing a host of dark secrets that threaten the Radleys’ marriage
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When I first started this book I could hardly put it down. I was excited about being in the Book Tour and the fact that this book is so very different from the usual vampire books that you usually find on the market. I read through the first 150 pages like no ones business. However it is around this time that I started to slow down. Nearly half way through the book and I started to feel as if it was getting repetitive. Clara just suddenly drops out of the point of view rotation and with every character narration comes the same problems, the same temptations, and overall a lot of monotony. I had to force myself to finish because I felt that the characters stopped moving forward in any type of development at all. There are things that happened in the book that down right bug me. Like how the parents tried to introduce the abstainers lifestyle on the son but not the daughter. Like how it felt extremely Twilight style for Eve and Rowan to be so ‘in love’ with each other when it was practically only on the basis of looks alone. They barely knew each other.

Finally I can not tell where the climax of this story was or even if there was one. It all seemed to be falling action once Clara was finished with her only purpose in the book, forcing the parents to tell the children about vampires. The ending was not really much of a cliffhanger but there is a sequel scheduled so be on the look out. However I would urge you not to hold your breath because it probably has a long time to go before it comes out.

My favorite characters admittedly did not get a lot of page time. I liked Clara and Jared, even though I thought of him as Eve’s father throughout the entire book. I liked Clara because she showed change throughout the book that many of the other characters lacked up until the final five chapters. She started out as the meek one, then the rebellious one, and finally the voice of concern. I liked Jared because I felt that he had a legitimate reason to be bitter and angry. In fact I also knew that in any other circumstance he would have been the main character trying to get revenge against the vampire who killed his wife right in front of him while the police swept it under the rug. Do The Punisher and Supernatural come to mind for anyone?

My least favorite characters had to be Eve and Helen. Eve because she acted like her father was the most embarrassing thing that ever walked the earth. Sorry, but I was on his side when he implied that making out with someone in lieu of rent money was dirty and practically prostitution. That and if you have a curfew of 11:00 PM there is really no reason to be out thirty minutes after because that is really late. She also did not really have much of a personality to me unless you count her being personification of angst ridden teen. Oh boo hoo boo hoo she got grounded for the weekend for being out late. Two days, she was not going to die because she was not able to go shopping. Moving on to Helen. She just bugged me. Mostly it was her holier-than-thou attitude. She got so mad at the tiniest thing her husband did because she was so paranoid of him finding out her secret.