Scan barcode
popcornreading's review against another edition
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Racism, and Blood
grace_ezri's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
A Black, LGBTQ+, Vampire novel written in the '90s what's not to adore!!! Fans of Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire sprint to read this book immediately!!!! Perfect fall read kinda tense and spoooky but not overwhelmingly so it give the perfect vibes. The pacing was perfect covering a large timeline in many areas throughout the US it kept you on the edge of your seat but allowed you enough time to sink in and understand each new time and place. It covers so many important topics from racism, sexism, found family, LGBT, humanity, greed, loneliness, jealousy, and environmental destruction. It was relevant 25 years ago and still relevant today. It really made me reflect on our society and what shape our future may take. I really appreciated how each character dealt with the vampirism different and showed a diversity of ways of dealing with their own humanity. I so often get caught up in wanting to read new releases I think it was important for me to go back to an older read and experience this! I'm so glad I read this book it will stick with me for a long time to come.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Racism
Moderate: Death and Sexism
Minor: Homophobia
poirot's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Slavery, Blood, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Death, Murder, Sexual violence, Violence, and Racism
Moderate: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and War
caseythereader's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
- THE GILDA STORIES is an expansive, meditative exploration of found family, womanhood, and Blackness told through the story of Gilda, a young Black lesbian vampire, as she lives through the centuries.
- It took me a bit to get into this story, as I often find older novels keep the characters at a bit of a remove for my tastes. But once I got a handle on it, I was invested in Gilda and her search for a place and people to belong with.
- It reminded me quite a bit of Octavia E. Butler's work, not just for the vampire parallels to FLEDGLING, but also for the considerations of complex relationships and families as characters navigate new situations and realities.
- It took me a bit to get into this story, as I often find older novels keep the characters at a bit of a remove for my tastes. But once I got a handle on it, I was invested in Gilda and her search for a place and people to belong with.
- It reminded me quite a bit of Octavia E. Butler's work, not just for the vampire parallels to FLEDGLING, but also for the considerations of complex relationships and families as characters navigate new situations and realities.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Sexism, Sexual assault, Blood, Stalking, Suicide, Violence, Alcohol, Abandonment, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Vomit, Racial slurs, and Rape
elizalavenza's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Rape, and Blood
Moderate: Slavery, Suicide, and Racism
Minor: Drug use, Racial slurs, and Sexual assault
stormywolf's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Breaking out of my reading slump to read last month's pick in Maven of the Eventide's (aka Elisa Hansen's) Vampire Book Club proved to be no easy feat. Unfortunately, my library did not carry the audiobook, and it turned out I had other obligations the night of the meeting. Luckily I found a copy of the audio online, and, as always, the book club meetings are saved for posterity, so while I wasn't there for the live discussion, I was able to participate in some ways (unlike the previous month's when my library didn't even carry a text copy for The Silver Kiss). And though I'd never heard of this book before the club picked it out, the premise seemed especially intriguing and I was eager to experience it. Let me just say, wow.
Read my full review at The Wolf's Den
Overall, this book will undoubtedly sit with me for quite sometime. From the characters, to the settings, to the long and tumultuous journey of self-discovery, I was wholly invested. The exploration of life, and what it means to live and love from the perspective of an outsider, along with powerful depictions of struggling to choose what's best for yourself and for those around you, even if that means starting over, were what impacted me the most. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in historical fiction, books featuring BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA+ main characters, empowering women, Afrofuturism, or just a fresh, new take on vampires—even hailing from 30 years ago!
Read my full review at The Wolf's Den
Overall, this book will undoubtedly sit with me for quite sometime. From the characters, to the settings, to the long and tumultuous journey of self-discovery, I was wholly invested. The exploration of life, and what it means to live and love from the perspective of an outsider, along with powerful depictions of struggling to choose what's best for yourself and for those around you, even if that means starting over, were what impacted me the most. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in historical fiction, books featuring BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA+ main characters, empowering women, Afrofuturism, or just a fresh, new take on vampires—even hailing from 30 years ago!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Racial slurs, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Drug use, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Alcohol, Body horror, Suicide, and Violence
Minor: Biphobia, Colonisation, Death of parent, Abandonment, Drug use, Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Slavery, and Stalking
ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
“My dream was to see the world, over time. The real dream is to make a world—to see the people and still want to make a world.”
TITLE—The Gilda Stories
AUTHOR—Jewelle Gomez
PUBLISHED—1995
GENRE—queer vampire story; literary fiction; historical fiction
SETTING—various places across the US including Mississippi, Louisiana, San Francisco, Missouri, Boston, NYC, New Hampshire, the SW (from 1850 - 2050)
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—vampires, queerness, Blackness, found family
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—the writing style just felt a bit slow and bumpy; it was beautiful just not as fluid as I like it to be...
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—this book is not about plot but I felt there was just the slightest of disconnects between chapters that felt a little distracting and also repetitive at times...
BONUS ELEMENT/S—[spoiler, lol] Bird went to New Zealand to participate in the Maori landrights movement!; also the found family trope was really well-developed in this story—one of my favorite things about vampire lit <3
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This book was like “vampire story but make it a literary memoir” and yeah—I am here for it. <3 It has a lot of the tropes surrounding vampire stories such as sex and body horror, found family, discussion of the ethics of immortality etc. I think it is inarguably the best demonstration of the importance of both queerness and Blackness in the vampire mythology as well. It was a *very* slow read for me for some reason though, although I kept on with it because I was interested in the story (and it was a bookclub pick 😂) but at times I was feeling a *little* bit like I was slogging through it.
“…as neoliberalism encourages privileged families to shape their lesbian and gay households in the image of hetero-patriarchy, Gilda’s example of chosen family and queer reproduction is instructive.”
I also particularly love the above quote from Alexis Gumbs’s afterword to the 25th Anniversary edition. It demonstrates why this book is *such* an important part of the queer literary tradition and what Gomez was really trying to accomplish thematically with Gilda and her story.
“My life is wherever I am.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Further Reading—
- the Tao Te Ching
- Fledgling, by Octavia Butler
- maybe one of the Interview with a Vampire series, by Anne Rice?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Gore, and Rape
Moderate: Racism, Slavery, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Sexual content
Graphic description of burned flesh; prostitutionbooksthatburn's review against another edition
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
THE GILDA STORIES spans two centuries in the life of a Black lesbian vampire, following her as she finds family, friends, and connections tethering her to life in the first stages of her journey as an immortal.
The pace is slow, but purposeful. Every section lingers just as long as it needs to convey its piece of this story that spans two centuries. The book is undeniably queer but a lot of the queerness in the early sections is understated or implied because it’s taking place in years and times where it’s not safe to be a woman, to be Black, to be queer. By having the MC be a vampire it takes some of the danger away, transforming it. It’s not gone, not really, it’s not magically safer for her to exist in this world that hates people like her, but it does help as a reader, to know she has something to keep her safe. It’s explicitly about abuse and power and violence and vulnerability, figuring out how to be a creature who could easily survive through violence but not if she wants to keep her humanity, her love for life. The final section flips this and changes which facet of her identity puts her in danger.
The secondary characters come in and out of the MC‘s life, sometimes being gone for long sections before returning again, and sometimes leaving forever, or being left by the MC. But even those she leaves behind in time and by distance often stay in her thoughts. Her fellow vampires have a consistent presence throughout the book, whether just in her recollections of them, her summaries of what’s happened with them most recently, or a few moments in person where the narrative lens aligns with their visits. It conveys this tension between loneliness and community which is integral to the story as the MC figures out how to stay interested in life as the years stretch ever onward.
The pace is slow, but purposeful. Every section lingers just as long as it needs to convey its piece of this story that spans two centuries. The book is undeniably queer but a lot of the queerness in the early sections is understated or implied because it’s taking place in years and times where it’s not safe to be a woman, to be Black, to be queer. By having the MC be a vampire it takes some of the danger away, transforming it. It’s not gone, not really, it’s not magically safer for her to exist in this world that hates people like her, but it does help as a reader, to know she has something to keep her safe. It’s explicitly about abuse and power and violence and vulnerability, figuring out how to be a creature who could easily survive through violence but not if she wants to keep her humanity, her love for life. The final section flips this and changes which facet of her identity puts her in danger.
The secondary characters come in and out of the MC‘s life, sometimes being gone for long sections before returning again, and sometimes leaving forever, or being left by the MC. But even those she leaves behind in time and by distance often stay in her thoughts. Her fellow vampires have a consistent presence throughout the book, whether just in her recollections of them, her summaries of what’s happened with them most recently, or a few moments in person where the narrative lens aligns with their visits. It conveys this tension between loneliness and community which is integral to the story as the MC figures out how to stay interested in life as the years stretch ever onward.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Homophobia, Racism, Drug use, Blood, and Gore
Minor: Slavery
CW for racial slurs, homophobic slurs, homophobia, racism, drug use, slavery, blood, gore, violence, sexual assault, major character death, death.nicolewhopickedthisbook's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
TW: Slavery, Racism, use of the N-Word and the F-Word, sexual assault, blood
I did really enjoy this book and was intrigued about where it was going. The interesting aspects of this book was Gilda in her vampire life and we even get into an apocalyptic 2050 when people find out about vampires and hunters emerge.
I did feel at times this book did drag on a bit and even certain passages repeat themselves. Either the wording was too similar or Gilda was just thinking things in a loop. There were a couple of times when Gilda was thinking of something while in the middle of a gathering or party and the passage would just jump back and forth between her thoughts and the goings on around her making the writing seem very choppy and it would definitely pull me out of the story.
Pop Culture Readathon 80’s Round Bonus Prompt: LGBTQ+ Rep
I did really enjoy this book and was intrigued about where it was going. The interesting aspects of this book was Gilda in her vampire life and we even get into an apocalyptic 2050 when people find out about vampires and hunters emerge.
I did feel at times this book did drag on a bit and even certain passages repeat themselves. Either the wording was too similar or Gilda was just thinking things in a loop. There were a couple of times when Gilda was thinking of something while in the middle of a gathering or party and the passage would just jump back and forth between her thoughts and the goings on around her making the writing seem very choppy and it would definitely pull me out of the story.
Pop Culture Readathon 80’s Round Bonus Prompt: LGBTQ+ Rep
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Slavery
Use of the N-Word and the F-Wordtoopunkrockforshul's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This was a very interesting take on the vampire genre, and had some very interesting commentary and implications. I loved the structure of Gilda's life throughout the decades and was suprised that it ended up being quite speculative in the end. The writing style didn't grab me as much as other books have but the story was very engaging the focus on humanity and sharing life with others was very poignant.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Racism, Rape, Grief, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Slavery, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, and Violence
Minor: Vomit