Let the Right One In

Friendship?

Well, this is not your typical coming of age story. Not your typical best friend got me out of my shell story. Not your typical something strange is affecting the town. It's mostly all of these things. It's not easy to root for any of these characters really.
We have or MC, we don't know too much about him, just that he's quiet and bullied.

In comes Eli. We find out quickly what he is and how he survives, thanks to the introduction of our other sort of main character/tragic villain/monster of sorts. As to how he became that, we find out in a crazy disturbing fever dream. (check out TW). He is selfish, and survivalist, but affects profoundly our MC and is probably his first friend, same for him i guess.

We have other side characters in the townspeople and they ground the story away from the coming of age friendship/love story, showing the reality of what it takes to live in Eli's world.

Overall way better than the movies, certainly better than the latest one, that really changes Eli's background. The pacing is what you'd expect of this author: slow, episodic and fever dreams inserted here and there.

3.75 rounded to 4 stars