Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Seriously, he was the real deal.

My understanding of history has been turned on its head. I can’t believe that Abraham Lincoln was not just a president but also bonafide vampire hunter. This book covers his whole life from birth to death, including the 40 years of hunting vampires. Ole’ Abe must have grown up on the stories of George Washington cutting down the cherry tree because the first weapon he picked up to chase down those heathens with sharp fangs and a thirst for blood is his trusty axe. Much of Abe’s early life choices were made based on his desire to pay back vampires for the death of his mother. It all starts with his father’s drunken story of watching his father killed at the hands of a vampire, a story told before countless times but never with the vampire ending. With this story of vampires, Abe’s eyes are opened to a world he thought only myth, and so were mine. Did you know that the slave trade was mostly a result of vampires? So was the civil war. What? Wait a minute. My wife says that the whole vampire part of the story isn’t supposed to be real. AHHH MAAANNN! That totally messes up the review. I was thinking that Abe spent his life ridding the world by hacking up vampires with his axe, splitting their heads in two, cleaving their bo…….apparently that’s too much for some of the reading audience, so the “censors” say (who are the censors anyway).  Hey, even if the vampires aren’t “real” (whatever that means), and the vampires didn’t “really” play a major role in the Civil War (maybe a minor role but probably not major, or not, because like my wife said “the vampire parts are made up”), the book is the best biography of a major political figure that I have read yet (political biographies being a genre that probably contains a fair amount of less interesting “fiction”).

This book is ultimately a heavy dose of non-fictional storytelling with a bit of twisted fun mixed in for good measure. Another great book for those of us that like history but can’t stay awake for the textbook style of non-fiction. I was even inspired to check up on the life of Abe Lincoln and was surprised at how parallel this story ran to the accounts of his actual life (assuming you still believe vampires aren’t real, although try telling that to Bella). The non-fiction feel to the story at times will turn off the majority of action flick readers because the action comes in bursts just like it does in real life. I mean if Abe was running around chopping off heads and splat…..(oh, sorry I forgot, no gratuitous violence) or um, doing vampire hunting stuff all the time, when would he have found time for his family and political career. I was entertained and I was taught, and that’s more than I can say for a lot of other books I have read. If you like history and you don’t mind a few Zombieland homages, then dig in and go for the ride.