Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Interview with the Vampire

Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

21 reviews

phillyhufflepunk's review against another edition

There's only so much casual pedophilia I can take. I tried to finish just to finish. I can briefly tolerate that Louie is an unreliable narrator and begrudgingly read through it even though he doesn't seem to show any character growth in the hundreds of years since he was a bored, unthinking plantation owner who cared more about capitalism than the humanity of the people who worked his land. I just couldnt do it for nearly 300 pages.

Content Warnings

nerdkitten's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-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? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

gabriella_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

I felt a lot of things reading this book - parts of it are deeply problematic (re: Claudia), but if you go in the with a grain of salt and self care ready, I think this is a solid read

The yearning is so strong in this book. There are moments where Louis’ sorrow is so tangible it has a physicality. It drapes over the narrative of prose of the book like a curtain.

“I didn’t know I thought these things. I spoke them now as my thoughts. And they were my most profound feelings taking a shape they could never have taken had I not spoken them, had I not thought them out this way in conversation with another. I thought myself then possessed of a passive mind, in a sense. I mean that my mind could only pull itself together, formulate thought out of the muddle of longing and pain, when it was touched by another mind; fertilized by it; deeply excited by that other mind and driven to form conclusions. I felt now the rarest, most acute alleviation of loneliness. I could easily visualize and suffer the moment years before in another country, [. . .] and then that passionate and doomed affection for Claudia which made loneliness retreat behind the soft indulgence of the senses, the same senses that longed for the kill. [. . .] And it was as if the great feminine longing of my mind were being awakened again to be satisfied. And this I felt despite my own words: ‘But it’s that dark, that empty. And it is without consolation.’”

The entire time I felt like I was seeing through Louis’ eyes and was keenly aware of

Lestat’s watchful gaze

“But Louis, this is the very spirit of your age. Don’t you see that? Everyone else feels as you feel. Your fall from grace and faith has been the fall of a century.”

Content Warnings

dannilmp's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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

2.5

I picked this book up for the interest of seeing one of the iconic pieces of vampire literature. I was not amazed by what I read and if we don't count the distubing sections and themes of this novel then it was not exactly memorable for me. I'm glad I chose to read this in audiobook format because I doubt I would have finished it if I were reading the physical copy.

Good points. There were not many good points to this novel. I think the best written part for me was Claudia's struggle to come to terms with her life and the constraints that come with it. I genuinly felt for her character at the times where I wasn't slighly repulsed by her actions or behaviuors. I felt the main cast, Louis, Lestat and Claudia were fleshed out and they did have some development over the course of the story but other characters really fell flat in comparison.

On the other hand, I wanted to see more about the mysticism and myths about vampire creation and culture and there didn't seem to be much of this at all. There were also times where certain comments or behaviours made by various characters, mainly Louis, Claudia and Lestat made me feel uncomfortable and almost made me want to quit reading the book then! Whether I will attempt to read any more books in this series is a good question that I currently don't have an answer to.

Content Warnings

amotoquinha's review

Go to review page

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

thesawyerbean's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.75

A dark, eerie and dramatic memoir of the life and experiences of a vampire named Louis, told in the context of an interview with a terrified but intrigued boy.
The story unfurls before us, laced with treachery, eroticism, death, love and a lot of blood; paced with twists, turns and climaxes; and underpinned with a nuanced discussion on existence and the concept of good and evil.

What made me not enjoy it as much as I could’ve was the lack of connection with the protagonist. I know fundamentally he is supposed to be evil as a murderous vampire, but I think in reading vampire fiction we suspend the vilification of this inhumanity as one both expected and understood. However, the seeming obsession in contemporary vampire fiction of making important characters have involvement in the slave trade/confederacy is so off-putting and honestly needless. In addition, his relationship with Claudia (although a grey area considering her actual temporal age), was very strange and gave off similar vibes to that in Lolita. Overall my empathy with Louis was extremely stunted from the get-go which made the rest of the story quite the slog.

That was a shame indeed, as the writing is incredible - vivid, atmospheric and poetic. If my gripes with the characterisation were non existent I’d be tempted to give it 5 stars just for that. As an important part of the vampire canon I’d say this was worth the read, especially for spooky month.

Content Warnings