Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Gilda Stories

This Afro-futurist vampire novel is way more than it appears and is easily my favorite read of 2022. Not only is it the best vampire depiction I have ever read, it also calls for you to look within and ask what does a community look like in the face of human caused devastation? Also, what would you do if given the chance at eternity? The story begins with a girl that grew up on a plantation and runs away, finding herself at a woman-run brothel and in the company of a pair of vampires that become her maternal figures. Each chapter jumps forward in time across the 200 years in her life as we watch Gilda adjust and adapt with each time period. A deep connection to the land is interwoven in the foundation of this story through Gilda's intimate relationship with the character Bird of the Lakota people, and through the physical carrying of soil of her homeland everywhere she goes. She meets various black queer women that shape her life along the way and we get the most tender found family of vampires I've seen in a long time. One of my favorite aspects of the vampire elements in this story is the ingestion of blood. Instead of it being a violent act that leaves the victim drained and lifeless, this story calls the exchange a 'sharing of life' where the vampire takes the human's blood and, in exchange, the human gets to dream out the deepest desires and is left dazed but alive. It's a fantastic book to pick up now and the 2020 predictions from when it was written (1991) are startlingly close to what we've experienced. I wonder how many of the 2050 predictions will come to pass. This story has literally everything you could want and to me, is an instant classic. PLEASE do yourself a favor and read it.

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popcornreading's review against another edition

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5.0

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grace_ezri's review

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

A Black, LGBTQ+, Vampire novel written in the '90s what's not to adore!!! Fans of Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire sprint to read this book immediately!!!! Perfect fall read kinda tense and spoooky but not overwhelmingly so it give the perfect vibes. The pacing was perfect covering a large timeline in many areas throughout the US it kept you on the edge of your seat but allowed you enough time to sink in and understand each new time and place. It covers so many important topics from racism, sexism, found family, LGBT, humanity, greed, loneliness, jealousy, and environmental destruction. It was relevant 25 years ago and still relevant today. It really made me reflect on our society and what shape our future may take. I really appreciated how each character dealt with the vampirism different and showed a diversity of ways of dealing with their own humanity. I so often get caught up in wanting to read new releases I think it was important for me to go back to an older read and experience this! I'm so glad I read this book it will stick with me for a long time to come.

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sofipitch's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful slow-paced

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

4.0

This book took me a while to get through because of the writing style. I just really hate 3rd person omnipresent, especially in the beginning the narrative switches to quickly between characters I was sometimes confused trying to keep up. My other complaint is the format, each section involves another time jump and change in location, Gilda moves between places and often friends. And I think this book does a good job of showing the value of community in black and queer cultures but almost everytime we make a jump Gilda already has an established relationship with characters. This book is very tell not show in that sense, it often tells you how Gilda feels about her new friends or her new location or job, very little scenes leeting the reader see it in action. However this book is still a classic for being such a first, even today we can't take for granted a black lesbian vampire story, especially one like this. It focuses so much of women finding their ways in non traditional ways, it's unabashedly queer, it's unabashedly black. Like I said, it's about community, to use a tik tok word, it's about found family. I heard that this book is potentially getting a TV show and I think that is a great idea, the writing style does kind of weigh this book down but the ideas are so good and so relevant.

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poirot's review

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reflective slow-paced

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

3.25

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caseythereader's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

- THE GILDA STORIES is an expansive, meditative exploration of found family, womanhood, and Blackness told through the story of Gilda, a young Black lesbian vampire, as she lives through the centuries.
- It took me a bit to get into this story, as I often find older novels keep the characters at a bit of a remove for my tastes. But once I got a handle on it, I was invested in Gilda and her search for a place and people to belong with.
- It reminded me quite a bit of Octavia E. Butler's work, not just for the vampire parallels to FLEDGLING, but also for the considerations of complex relationships and families as characters navigate new situations and realities.

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