A review by handove
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

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

3.5

i'm almost as confused on my feelings about this book as i was about the book itself.

i read this to satiate the growing brainrot from the tv show and it's very different, but i can see the base inspiration. as a whole, it was beautifully written and had some really poignant passages, but also it was boring as shit.

it was incredibly confusing at some points, notably a bit after louis arrives in europe; the long paragraphs of angsting did make it a bit hard to decipher. what the fuck happened with madeleine.

one good thing: it was homoerotic as hell, and even occasionally blasphemous. so yay i guess i just wish it didn't come with the pedophilia

other gripes:
  • anne rice really dug herself a hole by making feeding so erotic and a literal allegory for sex while also having her characters feed on children all the while
  • louis and claudia's relationship is creepy as fuck. he refers to her as his lover and wonders what it would be like if she was his paramour, so.
  • i felt rather detached at some point due to everything quite literally being dialogue told to the interviewer, which made it hard to get through
  • lestat :( miss you problematic babygirl
  • not really a gripe with the book per se but i cannot tell you how much it threw me off whenever louis or armand were described as white, which was. a LOT.
  • i know this was part of the effect, but the ending was just really unsatisfying imo. it didn't feel worth it to read a book as long as iwtv and there was nothing else.

well now i'm going to go have my heart broken by the show goodbye
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