Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

126 reviews

avie_j's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Slavery

Minor: Torture

zombiezami's review against another edition

dark emotional tense

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Slavery, and Death of parent

Minor: Torture, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation

uv_sensibility's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Incest, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Murder, and Colonisation

morenowagain's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Pedophilia, Racism, and Slavery

emmablue's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Slavery, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

emtees's review

dark emotional reflective sad slow-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? Yes

4.5

I read this book for the first time about twenty years ago.  After that, I read a lot more of the Vampire Chronicles books, until I sort of fell off from the series and the genre around the time Blood Canticle came out.  Some of them I’ve read multiple times, but Interview is not one of them, since I had a vague feeling of not liking that one was much.  But with the TV show now out, I figured I would revisit it.

I ended up enjoying this reread much more than I expected.  I had a vague sense of this book as being a slog compared to the others, but that wasn’t how I experienced it at all this time.  Instead I found myself really appreciating Rice’s use of language and setting and tone.  It is unquestionably a slow book, and a very internal book, and so it’s not going to appeal if you don’t like philosophical musings on the nature of evil and Catholic guilt and hallucinatory dream sequences that are never really explained and love letters to cities inserted directly into the narrative - in other worlds, if you don’t like Louis, the protagonist.  I like him a lot and so I really loved his story this time around.  You can see as you’re reading the way this book slots in between the horror-style view of vampires and the modern brooding tragic hero versions.  Louis is both a brooding tragic figure who doesn’t want to be a killer and a horror character who enjoys it and that works for me better than either of the other two options.

I also found it much more consistent with the later books than I thought it would be.  Rice famously wrote this as a stand-alone and then, when she expanded into a series, retconned some relationships and even whole scenes, with a sort of in-world explanation that Louis was an unreliable narrator.  And he definitely is - even within this book, its interesting to see the ways that comes across - but I was surprised that so many of the characters still feel like themselves from the later books.  I wasn’t really intending to but I think this is going to make me reread the whole series and I’m not sorry.

The one thing that is keeping me from giving this book a 5 star rating, though, is something that hasn’t… well, “aged well” isn’t really right, because the aging isn’t the problem.  The handling of race is bad in this book, no question.  It’s not a huge piece of the story, but its prominent in the first half and it’s an issue.  Louis is part of the weirdly extensive class of fictional vampires who started out plantation masters, but the problem here goes beyond a kind of “the times were different” handling of the subject.  Every mention of Black characters in this book comes across as fetishistic, and the fact that Louis never has any thoughts about the fact that he participated in slavery even centuries later - despite the fact that his entire story is otherwise about interrogating his own morality - is a very noticeable gap.  

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Pedophilia, Racism, Slavery, and Toxic relationship

A main character is a slave-owner, with no criticism of that in the book, and there is some racist language used. Basically every relationship, romantic or otherwise, is toxic. Child death/pedophilia warning:

One of the main characters is an adult vampire trapped in the body of a very young girl. A major part of the story is around her awareness of her state, including being sexually mature but not having a body to match. She has romantic feelings for an adult character and he expresses similar feelings, including attraction, to her, though he is also her father figure. There is no sexual content but there is sensual/erotic language used. All of this happens after she is emotionally and mentally an adult but the language does focus on her physicality as a child. She is eventually killed gruesomely.

taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Body horror, Gore, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Ableism, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol

nightfell's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This book has the most developed characters of any vampire novel I've read so far. It took a while, but the main characters really grew on me and the ending really left an impression that I wasn't expecting. 

It was slow to read at times, especially the beginning, but once I got into it, I was engaged in the story, and by the end, each character arc ended in satisfying and bittersweet ways that further endeared me to them. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves vampires, and would advise them to try to stick with it to the end.

 
I know Louis and Claudia have a father-daughter relationship...however why did Anne Rice feel the need to have them call each other their lover etc? Like... I know it's not like that but I felt icky sometimes idk if that was just me.

I loved Louis and Arnard, I interpreted their relationship as queer (idk how u wouldn't), and it was funny how Louis would keep internally justify their love as platonic, metor-mentee kind of bond but PLEASE they were spewing the most romantic lines. I was crushed by the ending, they were so close to happiness together. 

In the end, I felt so bad for Lestat, and I liked how full circle Louis arc was as he finally understood Lestat, and in a way became like him by the end. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Death, Slavery, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Stalking and Death of parent

All the obvious triggers that comes with vampirism

amotoquinha's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

stooby's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation