Oskar & Eli. In very different ways they were both victims. Which is why against the odds they became friends. & how they came to depend on one another for life itself. Oskar is a 12 year old boy living with his mother on a dreary housing estate at the citys edge. He dreams about his absentee father gets bullied at school & wets himself when hes frightened. Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She doesnt go to school & never leaves the flat by day. She is a 200 year old vampire forever frozen in childhood & condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood. John Ajvide Lindqvists novel is a unique & brilliant fusion of social novel & vampire legend a deeply moving fable about rejection friendship & loyalty.