A review by econsidine
Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

adventurous emotional hopeful 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

4.25

If you've made it to QotD, I'm assuming you're already on board for vampire melodrama and excessive use of words like "pearlescent." If so, you'll probably like this book. I enjoyed it a lot, like the previous two, and Lestat as the main narrator still manages to be on the right side of ridiculously-egomaniacal-with-a-conscience. He's very close to becoming insufferable to read about, but isn't yet.

Some things that don't work as well: the framing device is a lot weaker than in previous books, and as it's set up like episodic short stories, not all of the sections are winners. To Anne Rice's credit, though, most of it is compelling, and I was consistently surprised by just how weird and expansive she continued to make the universe without it feel overstuffed or convoluted. Special shout out to The Devil's Minion (a gripping, off-the-wall 30-page section that's very unrelated to the plot) and to Pandora (my favorite new character). I'm not sure all the stuff I found funny was actually meant to be funny, but the humor was hilarious, even more so because it caught me by surprise.

Overall, it starts strong, has some great moments, starts to drag for a while, and then ends good again. There's murder. There's kissing. There's a section called "Baby Jenks and the Fang Gang" and a vampire who collects blenders. What more do you want?
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