Oskar and Eli. In very different ways, they were both victims. Which iswhy, against the odds, they became friends. And how they came to depend onone another, for life itself. Oskar is a 12 year old boy living with hismother on a dreary housing estate at the city's edge. He dreams about hisabsentee father, gets bullied at school, and wets himself when he'sfrightened. Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She doesn't goto school and never leaves the flat by day. She is a 200 year old vampire,forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of freshblood. John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel is a unique and brilliant fusion ofsocial novel and vampire legend, a deeply moving fable about rejection,friendship and loyalty.