The Radleys (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Lorelei Andrews: Student and peer to Rowan who believes that the Radleys are weird.
• Peter Radley: Seventeen year abstaining vampire attempting to lead a normal life; however relationship with his wife is boring.
• Helen Radley: Wife of Peter Radley who is attempting to lead a normal life as an abstaining vampire.
• Rowan Radley: The eldest of the Radley children. Pale, shy and often bullied.
• Will Radley: Peter's brother who is a blood addict. Professor of Romantic literature especially the vampire poets.
• Clara Radley: The younger of the two Radley children whose recent vegan lifestyle is concerning her parents.
• Mark Felt: Next door neighbor to the Radleys.
• Lorna Felt: Mark's wife who is attracted to Peter.
• Toby Felt: Mark's son and Lorna's step-son (Toby hates her), jerk who bullies Rowan because he is a "freak".
• Eve Copeland: A beautiful strong willed only daughter to a man who has lost his wife and his job. Eve takes on much to help her father. She befriends Clara when she moves to Bishopthorpe. Clara's brother Rowan finds her to be the epitemy of perfection but he can barely do more tha mumble in her presence so he has gone unnoticed.
• Isobel Child: Will's on-off girlfriend and fellow blood addict who is his second best tasting source of vampire blood. She warns him to be careful with his victims.
• Jared Copeland: Financially strapped father of Eve whose wife disappeared.
• Stuart Harper: Rowan's second worse nightmare - another bully.
• Geoff Hodge: Deputy Chief Superintendent of the North Yorkshire Police Headquarters.
• Alison Glenny: Deputy Commissioner of the Greater Manchester Police. She reveals to Geoff Hodge the actual existence of vampires.

Quotes edit see section history

• “And the most delicious blood of all, the pinot rouge evey blood lover knows is the best on offer, is the blood taken from someone's veins the moment after conversion.”

• “It is perfectly possible to live next door to a family of vampires and not have the slightest clue that the people you call your neighbors might secretly want to suck the blood from your veins.”

• “We promised lots of things. But that was before our daughter went Bela Lugosi on a boy at some party in the middle of nowhere.”

  Peter Radley

• “They talked some more, Will prompting Peter into remembering their early childhood on the barge. How their parents always went that extra mile to make their infancy special, like the time they brought a freshly killed department store Santa Claus home for thier midnight Christmas feast.”

• “By doing, we stop ourselves imagining. And imagining for us is a fast-moving car heading towards a cliff.”

  The Abstainer's Handbook (second edition) p.83

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• Y ou reach a certain age—sometimes it’s fifteen, sometimes it’s forty-six—and you realize the cliché you have adopted for yourself isn’t working.

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• We’re middle-class and we’re British. Repression is in our veins.”

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• And if you live here long enough, you eventually have to make a decision. You buy a costume and pretend to like it. Or you face the truth of who you really are.

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• Surely the reality is that connections between people aren’t permanent but fleeting and random, like a solar eclipse or clouds meeting in the sky. They exist in a constantly moving universe full of constantly moving objects.

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• “We have to learn that the things we desire are very often the things which could lead to our own self-destruction. We have to learn to give up on our dreams in order to preserve our reality.”

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• It felt strangely grown-up too, as though that’s what being an adult was—knowing which secrets needed keeping. And which lies will save the ones you love.

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• I am the itch that is never scratched. I am the thirst that is never quenched. I am the boy who never gets.

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• I nevitably, if you have abstained all your life, you don’t truly know what you are missing. But the thirst is still there, deep down, underlying everything.

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• “He doesn’t want his daughter hanging around murderers,” says Rowan. “He’s old-fashioned like that.”

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• The trouble is, he realizes, you reach a point when even pleasure, the easy pursuit and attainment of things desired, develops its own routine. And the trouble with routine, as always, is that it breeds the same boredom that everyone else—all the unbloods and abstainers—suffer.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• 17 Orchard Place: Home of the Peter and Helen Radley.
• 19 Orchard Place: Home of Mark and Lorna Felt

Organizations edit see section history

• Sheridan Society: A loosely organized vampire rights organization.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• abstainer: a hereditary or converted vampire who is in the process--a continual process--of overcoming his blood addiction
• OBT: overwhelming blood thirst; a sudden and intense craving often triggered by denying the body valuable substitutes for human blood, to which vegetarian and vegan abstainers are particularly vulnerable
• unblood: an unconverted ordinary human being, who believes the existence of vampires is a fiction

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Decadence vs. Abstinence: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Matt Haig (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Alex Awards (2011)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PR6108.A39R33 2010
• Dewey: 823.92

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Horror › Vampires
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Teens › Horror
• Books › Teens › Literature & Fiction › Adventure & Thrillers

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• The site of Matt Haig: author's webpage

More Books Like This edit see section history