Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

15 reviews

bolivianrash's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Slavery, Gore, and War

Minor: Incest, Excrement, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, and Terminal illness

gh0st_f1sh's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Incest, Torture, Alcohol, Suicide, Blood, Murder, Physical abuse, Gore, Violence, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Death, Grief, Cannibalism, Emotional abuse, and Vomit

deductionist's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Lestat takes warnings and "no's" as just encouragement. Quoting a line from the book:
“Lestat, what did I say last night?” he asked. “You are the damnedest creature!”

That's it. That's the vibe of this entire book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Gore, Suicide, Incest, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Stalking, Alcoholism, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Sexual content, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Misogyny

Adding all the content warnings I could think of for this book was a freaking TRIP. This book is not for the faint of heart. A lot of heavy topics are presented here, but I think they're handled well.

loustat__'s review against another edition

dark 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Cannibalism, Gore, Blood, Incest, and Murder

avie_j's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, Violence, Gore, Blood, Body horror, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Suicide, Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Abandonment

Minor: Animal death, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Domestic abuse

poyopipo's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book made me feel insane. But damn did it make me feel something. Do read content warnings.

Lestat smokes weed. Way more gay sex than the first book.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Death, Gore, Incest, and Animal cruelty

econsidine's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

If you liked the first book, I guarantee you will really like this second book. I've seen a lot of reviews characterize this as some kind of "redemption" or "justification" of Lestat, and it's not really that, nor is it a retelling of Interview with the Vampire--instead, it's essentially a prequel that makes the first book a lot more complex. It's also a lot more fun to read than the first (and I *liked* the first!) mainly because it's told by Lestat instead of Louis.

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.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Torture, Body horror, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Murder, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness

Minor: Sexual assault, Car accident, and Incest

Sexual assault clarification:

it's really vague whether or not this is even what's being referred to, but the main character may have assaulted a woman (it is not said how or to what degree) right after being turned into a vampire. There is no description of it

Incest clarification:

Between mutually consenting adults--a mother and son, and basically just mutual attraction & some kissing. Very unclear the extent of the relationship.

tbd24's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

honestly I wasn’t convinced i was gonna continue the vampire chronicles at the end of IWAV, but right from the start this book got me interested. well maybe not RIGHT from the start but once Lestat started talking about his past. I loved his melodrama, the way he turns everything into a philosophical puzzle to be solved. And unpopular opinion lol but I like that Anne Rice made the vampires not care about human conventions like incest and age gaps, it shows how they are fundamentally changed from human kind. Even if these are still meant to be morally questionable actions, the modern vampires all maintain that they are evil creatures so why shouldn’t they commit horrific social crimes??? they

kill people lol

. Ultimately, i can understand why some people wouldn’t enjoy a book that happens mostly in someone’s thoughts and memory but boy is it my cup of tea, i’m so excited to read the next one

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Murder, Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Incest and Racism

Minor: Slavery, Adult/minor relationship, War, and Violence

claire_3lyse's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Violence, Death, Animal death, Blood, Murder, and Suicide

Moderate: Abandonment and Kidnapping

Minor: Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Incest, Sexual content, Child abuse, Child death, Torture, Vomit, Slavery, Toxic relationship, and Trafficking

hungryheidi2013's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Gore

Moderate: Incest

Minor: Stalking, Sexism, Slavery, and Toxic relationship

say what you will about anne rice but girlie could write the fuck out of an existential crisis