Yesterday I finished reading Let the Right One In and I enjoyed it a lot. Oskar and Eli's relationship is very sweetly portrayed even as Eli precipitates horrific things. It's funny how you don't perceive her as the villain even though she obviously is when you think about it. Arguably she even ruins Oskar's life,
but at least he doesn't have to worry about bullies any more.
Mind you, most of the horror stuff didn't really bother me except when
Lacke snaps the neck of one of the cats attacking Virginia. I have a cat myself, and I'm the first to admit I'm a crazy cat lady, but I still don't know how to feel when I care about fictional cats more than fictional people.
Oskar getting bullied is also a little affecting since, unlike vampires, bastards like that exist IRL.I also wonder why Eli chooses to present as female. Is he/she a crossdresser? Transgender? Was being castrated just a coincidence? Or is presenting as female a self-defence mechanism? Even nowadays people tend to think of girls as more innocent than boys; it's a marginal advantage, but one that would add up after 200 years. I guess it's open to interpretation, unless there's an explanation in Let the Old Dreams Die, which I have but don't plan to read until after La Belle Sauvage.