I have to be honest, when I first heard the title of this book I cracked up in hysterical laughing and declared in a highly dramatic fashion (imagine my fist pumping toward the sky), “Will they stop at nothing?! Must vampires suck the life out of every living story left?!” Then I cooled my head, walked on by and told myself, “Nicole… relax… you don’t have to read that book.” With that, I was done with it.
Or so I thought…
Then I heard rumors that a movie was being made fashioned after this very book! Well, you may not know this about me, but I kind of have this thing about reading books that become movies. I feel that if someone read this and thought it was full of enough goodness to fill a big screen and hundreds of thousands – nay, millions – of theater seats, then perhaps there must be something there. Also, at around this same time, I was reading another book that re-imagined the life of a former president and I was loving it. Suddenly, I wasn’t laughing at Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter anymore.
Suddenly, I needed to read this book.
Here is an overview of the story:
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.
So, my fellow, book-loving Nerds, this is it. With Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter hitting theaters in June, this month is our last shot to read the book before the movie! Let’s gather together our history nerds, our fang gang, our movie-buffs and all around word nerds to dive into this fantasy/horror and discuss it in the last week of May!
For all the information you need about the Word of the Nerd Book Club and how to participate, check out the Book Club Page.
If you are ready to join the book club this month, let us who you are and how you feel about reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter in the form below:
About Nicole Rivera
After 12 years of teaching high school math, Nicole put down her calculator and embraced her MacBook. She's finally accepted that her owl from Hogwarts will never show, but checks every night to see if the Doctor in his big blue box has come to whisk her away. While she waits she reads whatever she can get her hands on, works on her novel and watches more movies and TV than is probably healthy. You can always find Nicole on her blog, Rivera Runs Through It.
