Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

11 reviews

joonjxne's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Blood, Death, and Toxic relationship

citrusandwords's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Dysphoria, Violence, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Mental illness, Incest, Grief, Animal death, Blood, Death, and Death of parent

stinkylou's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Animal death and Incest

Minor: Alcohol

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

econsidine's review

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

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

nytephoenyx's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

Where Interview with the Vampire absolutely bores me, I really enjoy The Vampire Lestat. Lestat’s passion and vitality better embody what it means to be a vampire, at least in the popular sense of the word. Unlike Louis, he is curious and determined and emotional. Unlike his creations, Lestat has gone all over the world and discovered what it means to be a vampire, not just to be trapped as a vampire. 

 

Like the rest of her Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice’s writing style is tedious and self-praising. While I will give her a credit for shaping the way we see vampires these days (excluding Twilight of course) it remains that her writing style is slow, overly explanatory, and rambles. The Vampire Lestat has no beginning, middle, and end. It is simply an expression of who Lestat is. It is not a story, it is a slice. 

 

I have found it is best to take Anne Rice’s books as individual stories instead of greater parts of a whole. With that in mind, The Vampire Lestat is one of my favorites. This, and The Tale of the Body Thief have always captured my attention. While there are a lot of other more modern books available, if you want to read about traditional vampires at both their best and most vulnerable, this is a great start. Best of all? You don’t have to read Interview with the Vampire first.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Chronic illness, Death, Grief, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Incest

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

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

themelleh's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious fast-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? No

4.5

Lestat is one of my first crushes so my love of this book is purely nostalgic. I love my trash vampire and his completely over the top, dramatic flair.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Body horror, Suicide attempt, Classism, Death, Violence, Grief, Gaslighting, Gore, Blood, Colonisation, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship