My thoughts
Finished
[Spoilers] TLDR: This is how I felt about Robert Neville throughout the whole read. While I found some of the concepts in this book interesting, I found the protagonist so unrelatable and unlikable from the start that it ruined the book for me. I do realize that Robert sort of being a monster in the new world is the whole point, but I think this was supposed to be a twist at the end, not something I felt throughout the whole read. I do realize that realistically, any person in this situation would not be mentally sound. That said, from the neck-breaking, 180 degree shift that is "this vampire reminds me of my dead daughter" to "I want to sexually assault this vampire" that happens more than once in the book, to the pseudo scientific experiments on the infected (that also look like his daughter!). The guy comes across as a self-righteous, creepy, overconfident weirdo from the first chapter on. I didn't ever really feel conflicted in my dislike of Robert. The exception being when he tries to connect with the stray dog near the middle of the story. Around that point I started to think that there may be some room for Robert to have some moral redemption. After the dog passes, he seems to realize that the vampires are still alive, just infected, and likely mentally struggling. After that revelation, he decides he needs to hunt and kill his infected neighbor (what?). From there, he didn't really recover in my eyes. He knew that he was killing conscious beings, and just kept at it! Beyond my issues with Robert Neville as a sympathetic anti-hero, some of the horror in this book is dated to the point that I burst out laughing while reading it. The concept of vampires waiting outside the protagonist's house and flashing him to try and lure him outside but not being smart enough to open a door is probably the earliest example of this. All of that said, I realize that this was an early entry in the modern psychological horror scene, and it much of it seems dated because it inspired today's tropes. I think I would have liked this book a lot more if Neville didn't seem so far-off from where I would mentally be in his shoes.