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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
What a great continuation of the series!!
The world this series is set in has been even further expanded!! This was achieved through an even more in-depth exploration of the origins of vampires, and through the mortal world being brought into more of a focus. The latter was especially interesting to me as this series has been hugely isolated from the mortal world thus far, and so seeing human thought-processes relating to vampires really helped to flesh out the vampires' place in this world even more.
Jesse and Daniel were very intriguing characters because of this. Jesse's perspective had such strong similarities to Lestat's in The Vampire Lestat because Jesse was also surrounded by a world she couldn't be part of. Daniel is also an outsider in the mortal world in the begining, and he has Lestat's insatiable longing to be part of the other side, to be something other than what he was.
Seeing these familiar things in the mind of a mortal was an interesting switch.
Maybe, in a universe where there's two worlds that cannot interconnect (mortal and vampire) everybody is an outsider in some form?
The questions surrounding morality were also further explored in this book. Previously, there had been discussions of the place man-made morality holds in the world of those who aren't human, and the importance of morality regardless. Now, that importance is emphasised as we see what happens when the walls between good and evil are deconstructed.
"I give you the greatest freedom ever given man: I tell you that to slay your mortal brother is right" says the antagonists, Akasha, who creates her own moral code to fit her will. The chaos, destruction, and horror that occurs from this is a warning of what happens when you seperate yourself from the concepts of good and evil.
Especially as Akasha didn't wish for evil to spread, her motivations were centered around her idea of peace. But still, by abandoning moral code her good intentions (peace and stopping violence that comes from men) quickly descended into something terrible. "How is it possible...to break a cycle of violence through more wanton violence" as Marius said, and "she was absolutely right and absolutely wrong" as Lestat said.
I'm not morally good enough to fully disagree with Akasha though, SHE HAD A POINT👏👏 Like, yeah she was evil, but at least she's pro-active okay. Since when does peace come from NOT fighting back????
There were A LOT of new characters introduced in this book! I thought it was successfully executed though, Rice is a good enough writer to pull this off for sure. Each character has their own individual voice, emphasised through the switching of tone for their perspectives. This helps keep them all feeling distinct from one another. However, the multitude of different characters and perspectives did mean that the story took a whole to really get going and there was a lot of set-up. There were some perspectives I definitely enjoyed more than others too.
The switches between flashbacks/backstory and the present narrative were successfully done and added a lot of substance, but I felt like large parts of the book dragged because of it as I was more interested in the present narrative.
Also I looooovvveeee our main characters so much, they've really grown on me through out this series!! Lestat, Louis, Gabrielle, and Armand mean everything to me!!!!! I love this little found family of evil vampires sm. But I missed them a lot in this book :( They became background characters in amongst the plethora of new guys. Nevertheless, we still got some iconic moments from them that I shall treasure (the Devils Minion chapter owns my heart and soul).
I missed Lestat's perspective, but I loved having him as an unreliable narrator regardless! "And by the way, when these other characters think or say of me that I am beautiful or irresistible, etc, don't think I put these words in their heads. I didn't!" It added a layer of humour and vibrancy knowing that everything that happened in this book was filtered by Lestat. My love for him only grew with this book.
Wow, I just realised how long I've been yapping😬 Oops. I cannot be concise to save my life fucks sake
The world this series is set in has been even further expanded!! This was achieved through an even more in-depth exploration of the origins of vampires, and through the mortal world being brought into more of a focus. The latter was especially interesting to me as this series has been hugely isolated from the mortal world thus far, and so seeing human thought-processes relating to vampires really helped to flesh out the vampires' place in this world even more.
Jesse and Daniel were very intriguing characters because of this. Jesse's perspective had such strong similarities to Lestat's in The Vampire Lestat because Jesse was also surrounded by a world she couldn't be part of. Daniel is also an outsider in the mortal world in the begining, and he has Lestat's insatiable longing to be part of the other side, to be something other than what he was.
Seeing these familiar things in the mind of a mortal was an interesting switch.
Maybe, in a universe where there's two worlds that cannot interconnect (mortal and vampire) everybody is an outsider in some form?
The questions surrounding morality were also further explored in this book. Previously, there had been discussions of the place man-made morality holds in the world of those who aren't human, and the importance of morality regardless. Now, that importance is emphasised as we see what happens when the walls between good and evil are deconstructed.
"I give you the greatest freedom ever given man: I tell you that to slay your mortal brother is right" says the antagonists, Akasha, who creates her own moral code to fit her will. The chaos, destruction, and horror that occurs from this is a warning of what happens when you seperate yourself from the concepts of good and evil.
Especially as Akasha didn't wish for evil to spread, her motivations were centered around her idea of peace. But still, by abandoning moral code her good intentions (peace and stopping violence that comes from men) quickly descended into something terrible. "How is it possible...to break a cycle of violence through more wanton violence" as Marius said, and "she was absolutely right and absolutely wrong" as Lestat said.
I'm not morally good enough to fully disagree with Akasha though, SHE HAD A POINT👏👏 Like, yeah she was evil, but at least she's pro-active okay. Since when does peace come from NOT fighting back????
There were A LOT of new characters introduced in this book! I thought it was successfully executed though, Rice is a good enough writer to pull this off for sure. Each character has their own individual voice, emphasised through the switching of tone for their perspectives. This helps keep them all feeling distinct from one another. However, the multitude of different characters and perspectives did mean that the story took a whole to really get going and there was a lot of set-up. There were some perspectives I definitely enjoyed more than others too.
The switches between flashbacks/backstory and the present narrative were successfully done and added a lot of substance, but I felt like large parts of the book dragged because of it as I was more interested in the present narrative.
Also I looooovvveeee our main characters so much, they've really grown on me through out this series!! Lestat, Louis, Gabrielle, and Armand mean everything to me!!!!! I love this little found family of evil vampires sm. But I missed them a lot in this book :( They became background characters in amongst the plethora of new guys. Nevertheless, we still got some iconic moments from them that I shall treasure (the Devils Minion chapter owns my heart and soul).
I missed Lestat's perspective, but I loved having him as an unreliable narrator regardless! "And by the way, when these other characters think or say of me that I am beautiful or irresistible, etc, don't think I put these words in their heads. I didn't!" It added a layer of humour and vibrancy knowing that everything that happened in this book was filtered by Lestat. My love for him only grew with this book.
Wow, I just realised how long I've been yapping😬 Oops. I cannot be concise to save my life fucks sake
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
man this book really should have been at least 100 pages shorter (Anne did like to go on and on and on and on 😮💨)
the flashbacks, while interesting, felt very info-dumpy and were a bit of a chore to get through
honestly, i think i missed Lestat most of all 😅
the flashbacks, while interesting, felt very info-dumpy and were a bit of a chore to get through
honestly, i think i missed Lestat most of all 😅
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Moderate: Genocide
Minor: Rape
The movie was horrible and nothing like the book. Please, please don't let the movie drive you away from the book.
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I enjoyed the story elements and exploration of spiritual themes, getting to know more about where vampires come from. I also enjoyed getting to know other characters perspectives and stories. For me, the build up to the climax felt much greater and exciting than the climax itself. While the full circle moment with the twins eating heart & brain felt very satisfying, the actual climax and 'battle' felt anticlimactic.
Additionally, even though Akashas arguments were questioned, reading through them felt at time like reading through TERF arguments of "all men bad- all women good" and too many times did Lestat agree to that.
Nonetheless a very intriguing read with multiple perspectives and a great mystery behind it
Additionally, even though Akashas arguments were questioned, reading through them felt at time like reading through TERF arguments of "all men bad- all women good" and too many times did Lestat agree to that.
Nonetheless a very intriguing read with multiple perspectives and a great mystery behind it
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
As I've elucidated in my previous reviews of Anne Rice's work, her writing style and my reading style typically don't jive, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually really, really enjoyed The Queen of the Damned.
Don't get me wrong, there were still a few things I wasn't thrilled with (for example, starting 90% of the chapters with excerpts of her husbands poetry....? Even if most of the poems were nice and he's an actual published poet, I found this painfully indulgent and needless (admittedly it was especially grating on audiobook since I couldn't easily skip it, so maybe I'm biased)) but overall the story was interesting, the pacing was appropriate and compelling, and the fact that the story never zeroed in on any one narrator (instead choosing to jump around constantly), was SO MUCH BETTER than in The Vampire Lestat where there were just sudden, jarring and minimally supported switches away from Lestat's voice to someone else's. There was a central antagonist (unlike so many others) and everything set up in the narrative actually came together at the end to tell a complete, cohesive story rather than what felt like a random assortment of elements playing out independently with a sudden resolution that doubles as a sequel-hook.
This book feels like it was written for plot-loving readers like me, rather than lovers of purple-prose, character pieces, and universe building; I'd like to think it was more of a culmination of experience as a writer and therefore indicative of reasonable expectation for steady improvement after Interview with the Vampire (which I mostly enjoyed) or The Vampire Lestat (which I mostly didn't), but I also slogged through one of her more recent works, The Wolf Gift, and good lord that was awful.
I may tentatively, and likely only with another reader's recommendation, pick up another book by Anne Rice at some point in the future, but as it stands now I'm going to call QotD a fluke in my consumption of Anne Rice, rather than expect it to be any kind of turning point.
Don't get me wrong, there were still a few things I wasn't thrilled with (for example, starting 90% of the chapters with excerpts of her husbands poetry....? Even if most of the poems were nice and he's an actual published poet, I found this painfully indulgent and needless (admittedly it was especially grating on audiobook since I couldn't easily skip it, so maybe I'm biased)) but overall the story was interesting, the pacing was appropriate and compelling, and the fact that the story never zeroed in on any one narrator (instead choosing to jump around constantly), was SO MUCH BETTER than in The Vampire Lestat where there were just sudden, jarring and minimally supported switches away from Lestat's voice to someone else's. There was a central antagonist (unlike so many others) and everything set up in the narrative actually came together at the end to tell a complete, cohesive story rather than what felt like a random assortment of elements playing out independently with a sudden resolution that doubles as a sequel-hook.
This book feels like it was written for plot-loving readers like me, rather than lovers of purple-prose, character pieces, and universe building; I'd like to think it was more of a culmination of experience as a writer and therefore indicative of reasonable expectation for steady improvement after Interview with the Vampire (which I mostly enjoyed) or The Vampire Lestat (which I mostly didn't), but I also slogged through one of her more recent works, The Wolf Gift, and good lord that was awful.
I may tentatively, and likely only with another reader's recommendation, pick up another book by Anne Rice at some point in the future, but as it stands now I'm going to call QotD a fluke in my consumption of Anne Rice, rather than expect it to be any kind of turning point.
a beautiful idea of where vampires first came from and very unique as one of the first really great vampire novels/series (obviously excluding dracula). also much better than the film of the same name because even I wasn't sure what they were doing when they made that...
dark
mysterious
medium-paced