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Graphic: Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Death, Gore, Slavery, War
Minor: Incest, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Excrement, Kidnapping, Abandonment
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Incest, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Abandonment
Minor: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship
Graphic: Death, Incest, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Confinement, Misogyny, Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, War
Lestat is a great narrator, particularly because he is horrible. He is a misogynist and a terrible friend, with a giant ego, a violent streak, and no impulse control. He's definitely got some kind of incestuous relationship going on with his mother. And he's also a literal monster and kills people all the time. There is no redeeming him--which feels very much on purpose--and yet Anne Rice makes you empathize with him all the same. She never lets you forget how much of a monster he is, but also makes it clear that he feels immense love and pain at the same time. It's a refusal to equate evil with unfeeling that I find refreshing. It can be easy, in both stories and in real life, to try and see abusers/criminals/perpetrators of harm as coldhearted, lacking in self-awareness, and detached from humanity, but that's not necessarily the case. People can be loving and smart and self-aware, passionate and well-intentioned and victimized themselves, and can still do horrible things and be forces for evil. And Rice makes both the evil and the love unavoidable parts of her characters.
As a book, it's also a historical adventure story, moving from Auvergne to Gaul to Egypt to San Francisco and a whole lot of other places in the middle. There's also a lot of other characters' stories in this one, despite the title. The book reads almost like interconnected short stories, which makes sense for a tale about immortals.
And I guess that brings me to the other thing that strikes me about this book, the immortality of it all. Like the first book, but even more so, this book has a lot of philosophical musings about immortality and making it all meaningful and who is best suited to continue raging against that dying light the longest. Really, it feels like a way to discuss how to make an actual mortal lifetime meaningful, with the maybe-easier-to-digest natural phases and metamorphoses of an eternal lifetime acting as comparison. It reads, to me, like something written by someone who is very worried about death and about making life count. Though maybe that is projecting a bit too much. Either way, there's a lot going on here and it hit home for me.
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Torture, Violence, Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment
Minor: Incest, Sexual assault, Car accident
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Murder
Moderate: Kidnapping, Abandonment
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Incest, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Vomit, Trafficking, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
But what have I done? I thought. I didn't ask for this, I didn't give in. Even when Magnus told me I was dying, I fought him, and yet I am hearing Hell's bells now.
Loved to read more about Lestat background, given the fact that he didn't say much about it in the first book. And also the reason behind some attitudes that he has in it.
Also rockstar Lestat rocks can't wait to see how they do it in the Tv series.
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Incest, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Abandonment