Reviews tagging 'Death'

Lost Souls by Poppy Brite

7 reviews

reaperreads's review

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challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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essie85's review

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

2.5

Lolita but with a boy and vampires, without the social critique of Lolita. It had promise, and seemed to want to say something about youth culture, but then failed. 

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menderash's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-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? Yes

4.0

Lost Souls is my first Poppy Z Brite book, but it won't be my last.

Mr Brite has a knack for writing books about horrible people doing horrible things, often for little to no reason, with minimal plot except to make the next horrible thing happen. His main characters are all murderers, rapists, cannibals, necrophiles, or the people who love them anyway. The prose is a means to an end; the end being the reader's hopeful erotic satisfaction of reading someone get nearly decapitated in vivid, lovingly described detail.

Brite's books (the two I've read) seem to hold no greater point than to either turn you on or gross you out, probably both. The violence is pointless, the plots are pointless, the morals are hopeless. But you know what? Brite is such an emotionally charged, evocative, talented writer, that I can't help but be hypnotized by his ability to make me sit down and devour a novel in one sitting. He makes me care about the few morally sound characters even though I know something unspeakable is about to happen to them. He explores the nuance of monstrosity in his uhh. Less morally sound characters.

I think my most sound, least hypocritical criticisms of Brite's work is a) his exploitation of real victims of real tragedies and b) his handling or lack thereof of characters of color. The few non-white characters in his work are relegated to the occasional dead body, future victim, or stereotyped backdrop. Then again, considering the kind of character Brite centers as his protagonists, do I really want him, as a white man, to portray a character of color that way? I'm fine with Brite's beloved monsters being mostly white men.

TL;DR: Absolutely disgusting. Awesome ride. Will read again.

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chersonese's review

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

3.25

  I'm conflicted about this book, I enjoyed the characters they're all well written and fleshed out. With the exception of Jesse and Ann, who are really only used as a means to an end, or to elicit character development from those around them. Ann, especially, I feel deserved better, It's almost as if her personality was swept under the rug as soon as she collided with Zillah, which was the point and was explained in the book but it made her feel like an after-thought or a loose end that needed wrapping up. 
  There are themes in this book that are dark and while I don't agree with them and don't like reading about specific topics the book features, most were handled well, the depictions making you uncomfortable without feeling too gratuitous. The book has an interesting take on the vampire mythos that I commend it for and honestly wish there had been a sequel. 
  But would I recommend this book? I'm not sure, I don't know if the good outweighs the bad.

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kalira's review against another edition

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

1.75

This is very deeply grungy '90s horror, which despite the lavishly (lovingly, one might say) described . . . everything - horror, blood, injury, drugs (so, so many drugs), abuse, rape, nightmares, murder, and so on - within its pages . . . nothing of that feels terribly present. At least for me, most of it was at most disturbing of the cringe and blegh stripe if anything, not the kind of horror that makes an impression or lingers.

I've seen a number of people say they might have liked this book if they'd read it as a teenager, or similar; someone else commented that 30 is too old to start reading Poppy Brite. I'm in my 30s and I can fairly confidently say that I wouldn't have enjoyed this as a teenager either . . . and the heavy content might have been enough to screw with my head more than it did reading it now.

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loz_ange's review

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challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.75


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highkingmargo's review

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

2.5

great if you like grimdark, atmospheric punkgoth navelgazing horror but it's seriously not for everyone. the content warnings will contain spoilers, but better safe than sorry.

if you like darkfic and nasty grungy bisexual disaster vampires though, give this a try.

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