Non ho mai visto il film con Will Smith, ma ne ho sentito parlare così bene che mi è venuta la curiosità di leggere questo romanzo.

Devo dire che Io sono leggenda ha uno dei finali più smaliziati che abbia mai letto nella mia vita. Per tutta la durata del romanzo, ho avuto la sensazione di leggere un ottimo post-apocalittico, senza, però, trovarvi niente che non mi sarei aspettata di trovare in un libro del genere.

Io sono leggenda ci racconta del povero Robert Neville, che vive la sua difficile vita da ultimo uomo rimasto sulla Terra. I restanti suoi simili, infatti, sono stati colpiti da una malattia che li ha resi vampiri. Robert, quindi, oscilla tra la disperazione e la volontà di distruggere i mostri. Come dicevo, niente di eccezionale, anche se ci sono alcune scene davvero toccanti.

Il finale, però, è tremendamente parac*lo, perché ti costringe a rivalutare tutto quello che hai letto in precedenza e a considerarlo sotto una luce diversa. Anzi, è così potente da entrare nel cervello del lettore con la violenza di una deflagrazione. È stato certamente un gran colpo di genio da parte dell'autore e, se amate il genere, è un romanzo che non può mancare tra le vostre letture. ( )

A book on morality, shades of grey, and what it means to be the last man in a world full of vampires. This book had it all, and the crispness of the book did it justice.
I have a very strong feeling that this is one of those books that will look as if the backstory, and some additional expounding of details would make it better, but making the book more realistic, so to speak, would be just pointless filler getting in way of the plot.
Would recommend wholeheartedly. ( )

I liked this, quite a lot actually. Once I stopped thinking of it being in any way linked to the Will Smith movie (which I also liked but which is just a completely different story, really) I could just sink into it. The fight in Robert Neville and the futility of it all was so compelling to me. ( )

So i got 23% into this book and i simply cannot take another page of this.

Stupid, alcoholic, smoking, crap eating, sad, miserable idiot getting chased by lots of vampires.   Woohoo!   Yes folks, another dull and boring vampire story, only difference from the norm is that this one is post-apocalyptic as the vampires have wiped out all humans apart from this one pathetic, sad alcoholic.

Seriously, if you had the daylight hours of every day to do whatever you want, go wherever you want, you have the whole world and its contents at your disposal before the vampires came out at night to hunt and all you could think to do was live like this sad twat because you're a pathetic, miserable alcoholic, then you may as well just throw yourself into the vampire's grasp and get it over with.   Stop torturing yourself, and most of all, stop torturing us poor readers who have large "To Read" piles to get through.

I have no idea about the rest of the book, but the first quarter of it has no sci-fi whatsoever in it.   How this has managed to get itself into "SF Masterworks" is quite beyond me.   I suppose there always has to be the bottom of pile, hopefully this is it because i'm going to despair if there are any worse books than this in the series.

Deleted. ( )

I get tired of the special-effects driven horror movies, all motion and no plot. Whatever happened to the stories where I felt a genuine sense of dread, and anticipation? Did they all disappear after Richard Matheson wrote his novella?

If you are wondering where all the zombie/vampire motifs originated from, you're looking at it. It's unsettling thinking about being surrounded by people - perhaps dead but still very much active - who are looking to you for their next meal. It's about being very lonely, after locking all the toxic people out of your life. Is it worth the fight to stay alive, if you are doomed to be alone?

The plot moves quickly and it's a page-turner. No slow spots. Try not to read it on a lonely winter night at your cottage, like I did. ( )