Why a Booktrail?
1980s: A Swedish classic and a story of vampires in Stockholm
Let the Right One In
What you need to know before your trail
1981 Winter in Stockholm
In the suburb of Blackeberg, twelve-year-old Oskar is being bullied. His good friend next door Eli helps him fight back from the kids who are making his life a misery. But Eli is not your ordinary child – as she is a vampire but Oskar doesn’t know this yet. Mysterious things, bad things start to happen in the community and then Oskar starts to build up a picture but will he stay friends with Eli and just what is going on?
Travel Guide
Stockholm is not the usual setting for a vampire story and a young girl by the name of Eli not your usual kind of vampire. Oskar only knows her as his best friend who helps him from bullies and life in his grey unfriendly and dangerous Stockholm suburb.
Life must be tough enough for him without him finding out that his best friend is really a 200 year old vampire. The world of the bullies is however his world and he tries to escape it by imagining the Oscar he wants to be – one who kills his tormentors. His lets out his anger by stabbing trees and shouting. His is a small dark world which he finds hard to understand. The world of a confused 12 year old is poignant and sad.
The murders which soon start to take place in and around the area are disturbing and frightening. Stockholm is not a nice place it would seem for it is dark and cold and violent. The Vampire world soon comes into full view and it’s a chilling sight. Eli’s world is a dark and chilling place and very uncomfortable in parts. The attacks are dark and gruesome, this is no gentle vampire tale.
But the real setting here is the bridge that forms between two worlds of isolation – a young boy bullied at school and a vampire thirsty for blood.
Where Next?
