Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Tale of the Body Thief

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice

57 reviews

thysparklyreads's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective

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

3.75

This book was quite enjoyable though as I've experienced TVC so far, they only tend to really get me hooked well beyond the halfway mark.

The pacing issues are still present, though not as pronounced this time around, mostly on the start of it.

This book was refreshing in that it didn't have an absurd amount of characters, just a very crucial few that happened to be extremely infuriating. The title character was unbearable but as a villain it's to be expected. The issue is that when your other main character is also an antihero and insufferable there's just too much of that to go around and nobody to root for but a dog.

I believe that after finishing it, if i had to guess what Rice's purpose was with this book it would've been to maybe make it so people really saw Lestat the way he truly is in her eyes. I think the readers are Talbot and Rice is guiding the tiger towards us and trying to remind us that it's not just a big cat.

Surprised to say that I really enjoyed Louis in this book. He's always felt very underwhelming as a character though I assumed it was planned that way to make Lestat stand out more.
I got spoiled majorly about this book and yet it still hurt more than I thought it would.

Time to move onto the next one.

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eleasofia's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.5

i enjoyed this a lot less than the previews books in the series. in general, the entire premise and storyline of the book felt so much less high-stakes and relevant. i really don't like it when the premise of a book is that the main character does something stupid while knowing that it's stupid and the consequences will be bad and then the book is just about the main character dealing with the very predictable and avoidable consequences. exploring what it would be like for a vampire, especially lestat, to be human again is somewhat intriguing, but i don't know if it needed to be told in this many words.

the beginning of the book was just dragging on. then the middle, i actually really disliked. i didn't care much for all of the religious talk. i really dislike feeling secondhand embarrassment on behalf of the characters in a book. at around 50% it became actually interesting and exciting again, so i really feel like it could've been condensed. i know that the previous books were also long and somewhat slow, but the history of the vampires and all that was happening felt high-stakes and important and i liked reading about it from multiple povs etc., but that just wasn't the case for this book.

also, i really disliked some of the things lestat did in this book. of course, the genre is horror, lestat is not supposed to be a "good" person and will do horrible things. the vampires drink blood and murder people constantly.

but the rape by lestat really bothered me. unlike the rape by khayman in ancient times, i didn't feel like this was something that needed to happen for the plot. i didn't like the rape by khayman either, obviously, but it was only recounted as an event that had happened and led to a child being born, which was basically the beginning of the big family and important to the entire plot, and it was something that was forced by the circumstances and the time. and the entire chapter where lestat first becomes human again was just terrible to read. i know that it was probably intentional, that this chapter was supposed to show the reader that lestat is not "bad" because he is a vampire and it is his nature to drink blood and kill people, but that even as a human he is still easily capable of horrible acts. doesn't change that i still really disliked it.

nevertheless, i finished it, and i'm glad i did because i still plan on reading the rest of the series.

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bluelilyy's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

despite the ridiculous amount of time it took me to finish this book, i did enjoy it quite a lot.

lestat just kept pissing me off BAD so i took a lot of breaks and put down the book for like two weeks before picking it back up.

im gonna take a break from the vampire chronicles for a bit. i do have memnoch, whenever i decide to pick that up but i want to read something else and just take some time before i read anymore of these books.

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