Review: I Am Legend

Author: Richard Matheson

Started reading: December 18th 2020

Finished the book: December 25th 2020

Pages: 162

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Classic

Published: July 1954

Source: E-book

Goodreads score: 4.07

My score:

Synopsis

Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth... but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has succumbed to the vampire plague, and they are hungry for Neville's blood.

By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn.

How long can one man survive like this?

My thoughts

Thanks to Arjen for doing this buddyread with me! I was excited when we started reading this book, because I remember watching the movie and really liking it. Right now I'm right back to the old cliché saying: Books are better than the movie. In this case it really truly is like that. I think the movie is just way too different from the book, it only borrows some of the names from the book. I did like the story in the book a lot!

Pros

• Dystopian: The worldbuilding in this book is so well done. It truly feels like it's our world (earth), but it changed like it's unrecognizable right now. I always love feeling like it's a real world but so different as well. The world in this book feels scary, mysterious. Life feels lonely and sad. The fact that the worldbuilding is able to stir all these emotions in me is a great job done by the author.
• Conversations: This book has very few coverstations and I know I'm a reader that needs coverstations. I get bored if there is way too much text and no talking. In this book, I didn't miss the conversations at all. The story kept my attention the whole time. I think that the inner-speech by the main character helped a lot.
• Flashbacks: It's clear the main character has lost a lot in his life. The flashbacks clearly show you, as a reader, how much he has lost. It also gives some answers as to why this big disaster happend, how it started and how it all went downhill as time progressed.

Cons

• Errors: I don't know if it was just the version I was reading, but this book had a lot of errors. At some point it irritated me a bit. There was a lot wrong with the punctuation and with words being spelled wrong. I think it's not even supposed to be like that in an E-book?
• Ending: This ending made me sad. I wanted so much more for the main character. I felt like he deserved more and I felt so, so sad. I did not find the deeper meaning in the ending and the extra layer until my buddy Arjen told me so. I felt like I could find better closure after understanding the deeper meaning.

Overall

This book is a great dystopian/horror novel. I love the worldbuilding, it's so well done! This book has literally nothing to do with the movie. I watched the movie with my boyfriend and really had to tell myself to shut up after 10 minutes, because I found so many different things. I decided I would just enjoy the movie, but I loved the book way more!

Thanks for reading!

I'd love to talk books; please let me know what you think about this book review.