I'll admit I'm not a very critical reader, I usually just take stories at face value and never really try to look for real world parallels but they're pretty obvious in this one.This book came in out in 2004 when America was very much turning its anger outward and it makes sense it produced a novel like this, where an evil force crosses the ocean, brings down our religious institutions and steals away personal freedoms (they even bring up the 9/11 attack, its not meant to be subtle). Fast forward 20 years though where now America has turned its hate inward and it's scary what you're left with. The vampires in MM bring down America by claiming and debasing the office of president, recruit disenfranchised and angry humans to their side with promises of power in the future, wipe out minority groups before eventually going after christians and appropraiting/perverting their iconography. There's also a through line of the leads learning that this is a world where morals are a liability and if they want to fight back effectively they have to, at least partially, become more like the thing they're fighting against which is really f**king bleak to think about. The book does end on a mostly hopeful note though with the mains finding out just how fragile the vampire's valance of power is and taking that message to the rest of humanity but from what you learn about the rest of the world it's a problem that will never go away. So….yeah none of that struck me as familiar at all haha. Maybe Im just talking out of my ass though, like I said Im usually a pretty face value reader, but if you've read this book I want to know what you think I had never heard of it before but its probably one of my new favorite vampire books
by ShinyBlueChocobo