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A review by frantomlimb
Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite
4.0
This is a really difficult one to review, this book meant an awful lot to me when I was a teenager. I have such vivid memories of reading it alone in my room and at school when I was around 14 or 15 years old and it was unlike anything I had ever read at the time. I think it was the first "grown up" book I'd ever read and signified my turning away from children's literature. Revisiting it was something I'd been meaning to do for years and an online horror book-club I've joined we're doing it which gave me the perfect excuse to finally read it again and hopefully have a deeper understanding of the content and oh boy.
Though this was definitely something I shouldn't have been reading at such a young age (mad respect for my parents for never censoring what I read) this also feels like something that only a teenager could find deep and meaningful. About halfway through reading the physical copy, still got the one I "borrowed" from my dad's library, I felt myself struggling a little and switched to the audiobook and kind of switched back and forth between the two which I highly recommend for fellow slow readers.
I will still always have a very special place in my heart for this book and the impact it had on me as a lonely little goth girl but I couldn't help myself from rolling my eyes quite often at some of the more purple prose musings about the darkness and sorrow and suffering etc. Most of this comes from Nothing, I can tell I'm getting old when I want to tell the teenagers in books to get a grip, and even more so when I want to say it to the 20 somethings.
There's some incredibly evocative and visceral language used at times and some quite poetic turns of phrase very occasionally but I think the perfect age to read this might be 19, which I think might be how old the author was when this was written. I might not ever read this again but I remember Exquisite Corpse being a lot better and more exciting so I'm keen to revisit that one. I'll give this a 3 and a half but bump it up to a 4 for nostalgia sake.
Though this was definitely something I shouldn't have been reading at such a young age (mad respect for my parents for never censoring what I read) this also feels like something that only a teenager could find deep and meaningful. About halfway through reading the physical copy, still got the one I "borrowed" from my dad's library, I felt myself struggling a little and switched to the audiobook and kind of switched back and forth between the two which I highly recommend for fellow slow readers.
I will still always have a very special place in my heart for this book and the impact it had on me as a lonely little goth girl but I couldn't help myself from rolling my eyes quite often at some of the more purple prose musings about the darkness and sorrow and suffering etc. Most of this comes from Nothing, I can tell I'm getting old when I want to tell the teenagers in books to get a grip, and even more so when I want to say it to the 20 somethings.
There's some incredibly evocative and visceral language used at times and some quite poetic turns of phrase very occasionally but I think the perfect age to read this might be 19, which I think might be how old the author was when this was written. I might not ever read this again but I remember Exquisite Corpse being a lot better and more exciting so I'm keen to revisit that one. I'll give this a 3 and a half but bump it up to a 4 for nostalgia sake.