Reviews with content warning for Blood - O vampiro Armand

probably my favorite book in the series. very disappointed in the lack of daniel and how shit the one mention of him was, him and armand are the best together. other than that, loved this book.
literally tw everything though its atrocious but i love that its funny

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armand's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense

wow. this was easily one of the most devastating books i’ve ever read.

armand is my favorite vampire of the series, and it was very painful to get through this book. although i wanted to read more about his backstory, story ripped my heart to shreds. i disliked marius before, but he is now one of my most HATED literary characters of all time. i’ve seen many people demonize and bash on armand’s character for being Strange and Offputting… and while i understand why some people can find him to be uncomfortable, why is he the way he is? he was a child when he was made and he suffered, while being a human child, repeated CSA, physical and mental abuse and grooming, by the hands of his immortal maker marius and mortals alike. he never got to have a childhood, and was thrust upon a world full of sick individuals that twisted his perception of the world and those around him.

and throughout the series, we see how the abuse that he suffered affects his relationships with other people throughout the series.

he didn’t achieve a deep, long-lasting romantic relationship, but he found love in his two “adopted children”, his brother and sister, sybelle and benji. and it makes me very glad! this little family is just what he needs. i feel for him, and this book only deepened my appreciation of the character.

on another note, anne rice’s purple prose in this is lovely! loved the philosophical monologues, and how descriptive it was. her writing is beautiful to me, but i did have MAJOR issues with how graphic the sexual content was in this depicting the life of a teenage boy, and how romanticized the dynamic between marius and armand was (although i understand that this was in the victim’s pov… but it could’ve been handled better) for a book about how predatory adults traumatized a person forever in a teenage body, the topics surrounding this could’ve been handled WAYYY better (didn’t have much hope bc this is an anne rice book but geez)

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reclusivebookslug's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

My favorite of the Vampire Chronicles to date. Also made me cry the most. I've always been eager to learn more about Armand and this fulfilled all my hopes for his story. The ending reads to me as cautiously hopeful, which is an unusual but appreciated turn for Rice (maybe the ending to QOTD could be categorized similarly).

I love how Louis, Lestat, and Armand's different voices are so clearly distinctive in the books they narrate. I had gotten used to reading from Lestat's POV, but I was really put into the headspace of Armand here. Similarly, I found it clever how Rice distinguished the three different iterations of Armand with his names -- Andrei, Amadeo, and Armand. You get a real sense of his desperation for purpose and guidance, which is so strong he is able to adapt to strikingly different ways of life and codes of morality to best suit the situation he finds himself in.

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usually_sleep_deprived's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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carrionkid's review against another edition

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4.0

Overall, I think the last 2/3rds of this book really make it worth the read. The first third is ROUGH, filled to the brim with gratuitous CSA that the author doesn't seem to have an issue with. But from there on, I think it's a strong addition to the series even if some of the events actively contradict past books in the series. It's visceral and raw and a very good change of pace from the other books in the series. However, the CSA definitely knocks it down a star.

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sofipitch's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have no desire to read books 4 and 5 in the vampire chronicles, I skipped from Queen of the Damned to this book. So I was disappointed when the plot of Memmoch figured in heavily towards the last 100 or so pages. I liked the backstory of Armand's life as a human but had to mentally age him up in my mind for some scenes to be bearable. I wish Anne Rice could resolve conflict between characters rather than just having characters drift away from each other to find new companions who suddenly love them unconditionally right after meeting them. I didn't give this book a super low rating because I knew ahead of time that the quality of Anne Rice's books drop off after Queen of the Damned do I went into the book with much lower expectations. I love historical fiction and settings and like I said, I really did enjoy the first part of this book.

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parttimerarebookdealer's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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