Salem's Lot

In the spirit of Halloween coming up, I've decided to review one of my favourite horror novels of all time: "Salem's Lot" by Stephen King. This book, unfortunately I read when I was only 13 years old and it scared the absolute crap out of me. I find it particularly good to review today - seeing as we're in the spirits of it all. Hahaha, the 'spirits'! Did you get it? (I tell bad jokes)

The premise of this book lies in the Marsten House - which is apparently Ben Mears' favourite place in the entire world...and Vampires. Lots of Vampires. Not the Romantic kind, the bloody and scary and Anne Rice-esque kind. Oh no. 

Characters: 

My favourite character is Kurt Barlow because he's infected with the vampiric disease and literally catalyses all the shit. He seems to be the root cause of it all and he doesn't give a shit. He has the typical allergy to the cross - but is about 100x more terrifying than most characters in the novel. 

Themes:

My favourite theme was probably religion. I love how King interweaves religion into his stories - but doesn't overuse it for scare. I believe that King has an equal balance between what is real and what is religion - it works on so many different levels and he is a great writer because of it. 

Storyline:

My favourite part of the story is when Mark's parents die. Good burial or infected burial? Good burial, or infected burial? Good burial. Infected burial? We cannot decide (obviously it is decided in the book). I think this is the place (apart from the cross thing) where religion is more at play than in the rest of the novel. 

Verdict:

100% for characters: Kurt and Ben were my favourite characters

100% for themes: Religion, fact and truthfulness are the best themes in this novel. 

100% for storyline: And if you don't like Stephen King books, you can piss right off.