Monday, September 13, 2010

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

Lestat is now a famous rock star, but his life started back before the French Revolution. This vampire has lived a wild, rampant life and vampiric death no matter the age. He has never been content with staying in one place and has travelled around the world, collecting riches and connections as he went.

This sequel to Interview With the Vampire far outshines the original. The decade between them gave Rice the ability to actually write something that didn't sound like hyped-up melodrama written by a teenager who has never read classic vampire fiction. She also gained the skills to create an interesting character, who is not clearly "good" or "bad" and is frequently full of contradictions. Lestat is greedy but charming, immature yet knowledgeable, thick as a brick while being clever, but somehow it all rings true.

The writing is still wobbly and simple at times. Rice seems very fond of overusing "exotic" words to try and make her vampires exciting. (A technique which takes away from them instead.)

4 Stars

Emme

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