Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice

10 reviews

peggy_racham's review against another edition

4.75

To keep your belief after forgeting your childhood and your parents. And it then almost destroying you. 
Armands story is heartbreaking but I understand him so much better now.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

bordino's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Murder

cecilyroseceillam's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

4.0

I enjoyed the vampire armand a lot, I do have a few criticisms though. It has quite a few weird pacing issues where the first half is extremely extremely slow and then the chapters get shorter and more stakes are involved and ideas/themes feel slightly rushed and then it becomes very slow paced again. I also feel like some things needed to be expanded on and or edited as some things feel very out of place. I also didn’t like the amount SA and CSA on the first two chapters even if it’s meant to be historically accurate. I loved the descriptions of Venice and Italy and Italy began to feel like a character itself which I enjoyed a lot. The way Anne described armand finding new technologies and clothes from that time period was beautiful to read also. I also loved the descriptions of the paintings armand and Marius did, it feel like you had climbed into the paintings and were a part of the colours and egg tempura. I also really appreciated the way this book clarified Memnoch the devil more, and linked back up to the vampire lestat in more detail and added some extra things to them as well as interview with the vampire. Overall I’d recommend the vampire armand if you want a quicker recap like story telling of a lot of history and don’t connect as much with Anne’s much longer, more historically depth work. And I also like that this book has some mystery elements too from armand history and some previous books which get uncovered. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Cannibalism

tobyvamp's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, and Slavery

Moderate: Racism and Xenophobia

moreau's review

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.5

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Gore, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Slavery, Suicide, Grief, and Death of parent

armand's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Trafficking, and Sexual harassment

usually_sleep_deprived's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Gaslighting

carrionkid's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

sofipitch's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Child abuse, Cannibalism, Car accident, and Death of parent

parttimerarebookdealer's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Grief