Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Queen of the Damned

Queen of the Damned is not a story that allows the reader to spectate while the characters have adventures - the reader instead stands back and listens to the characters as they discuss histories and current events. In that way, Queen of the Damned is a critically acclaimed info dump.

The story is interesting, but I find the delivery shallow and lazy. It’s consistent with the rest of the Vampire Chronicles - I think I forget in between reads. Anne Rice holds the standard to which vampire books are held (Anne Rice and Bram Stoker) but while the imagination is there, the technique is lacking. If you’re interested in the origin of Rice’s vampires, Queen of the Damned delivers the story like reading a Wikipedia article. But you do get the history of the creatures. So there’s that?

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thysparklyreads's review against another edition

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4.5

This was a really good one. I'm not sure how to compare it to the others in the chronicles because it's so different but maybe that's one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so?
It's one of those books that really picks up towards the end and it drags quite a bit at the beginning but other than that I have no complaints.
I really liked all of the characters we were introduced to and their stories so I'm looking forward to the next book.

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peggy_racham's review against another edition

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5.0

"The past may instruct us. But it won’t save us."

Women's rights and wrongs but has Akasha ever been right?

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mysimas's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

The plot was lost in too much navel-gazing and prolonged scenes of characters just talking or sometimes even just standing and staring at each other awkwardly. Lestat’s concert was exactly that: a bunch of vampires standing in the crowd and observing one another. And you know how in movies, at the end, the villain always discloses their whole philosophy and motives? Well, that was Akasha’s whole shtick, all her scenes were either about that or about letting Lestat drink from her and then teaching him his new super powers. Got old pretty quick.

I did enjoy some parts though — the end was good, as was the worldbuilding, like it always is with this author (though I wish it wasn’t all built around a rape, like why). But in the end I would only recommend this to people already curious about the lore. If it wasn’t for the show I would never have bothered to finish — I really wanted to know what’s the deal with Daniel and Armand, and I sincerely hope the show will elevate it with all the changes that are already in place.

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