So you think you know the people next door?
In the charming English village of Bishopthorpe, you could live next to the Radley family and never know that they are vampires.
In Matt Haig’s The Radleys, mom, dad and the two children work pretty hard at “passing” for normal. They often consult “The Abstainer’s Handbook,” which offers this helpful advice:
“Confine your imagination. . . . Do not sit and ponder and dwell on a life your are not living. Do something active. Exercise. Work harder. Answer your emails.”
If they feel a rush of Overwhelming Blood Thirst (OBT), they are advised to “Switch on the lights. . . . Watch golf.”
Rowan and Clara, the teenage Radleys, suffer all the normal teenage problems: bad skin, obsession with fad eating, weird parents, teasing at school.
Oh, don’t roll your eyes, now. Things are truly tough for these kids:
Vampire skin, exposed to sun, develops an itchy rash.
Clara needs her vegan-diet thing to work out because, every time she approaches an animal, it runs away screaming.
And Mom and Dad, bless their abstainer hearts, really are weird.
As for the teasing at school, how much can you take before your fangs pop out like the blade of a utility knife and expose your secret to all of Bishopthorpe?
You won’t know until you read Haig’s book.
The Radleys reveals a world in which the characters stalk each other on Neckbook and pour, from wine bottles, a full-flavored drink that isn’t really wine.
The plot frays here and there, but I snickered often.
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I’ll stick to my bread-based diet, thanks, by eating Slow-Cooked Chicken and Stuffing.
There would have been rolls, too. The dough sat in a pre-warmed oven, covered in plastic wrap, rising nicely. Then somebody came along and turned the oven on pre-heat.
Plastic melted all over bread dough, loaf pan . . . not pretty.
Somebody is forgiven, but I kinda miss the rolls.
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