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mysticwiki 's review for:
The Vampire Lestat
by Anne Rice
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
so this book took me a little over 2 months to read. I initially checked this out from my local library mid-February, before a long weekend trip to Houston, and brought it with me on the plane with the intention of reading but I never did oops. This book was with me during all of the month of Ramadan and into April as well. This book has gone through A LOT with me, just in general, but also because 2025 has been a hell of a year already.
Anyway suffice to say that The Vampire Lestat has really done a number on me! The slow pace in which I read, coupled with distractions from other books (literally reading other books to take breaks from this), while also rewatching season 2 of the AMC show with my friends has made me absolutely enamored and obsessed with Lestat. I can fully understand why Anne Rice loved her character and guy she created so much. I enjoyed this book way more than Interview With the Vampire (IWTV) in a bunch of different ways. I think it's primarily because the book version of Lestat (and also the TV series, let's be real) is way more interesting to me than Louis, but there's also the added piece of the fact that both Lestat and Louis are unreliable narrators in their own respective ways. It was also interesting to see Lestat's perspective in general, though, with bits of his side of the story in IWTV but also just everything before. Lestat is also the craziest narrator ever, and the fact that I could probably start a count of how many times he's burst out into tears is hilarious to me (I'm like 95% sure there's a count of this already somewhere online). Also, hello?? The vampire lore in this? The origins of vampires?? That really threw me off, but I'm so curious to see everything tie in. Not only that, but god, Armand? The way his character was built up even more in this, I genuinely did enjoy it. And of course we can't forget my favorite character of all time in this novel. Gabrielle my beloved. This book genuinely had more lovable characters to me than IWTV, and I am excited to see more of them as I go to read more of the books in this series.
My only grievance with this book (and series in general tbh) is the fact that Anne Rice's narrations and the way she writes things can go on and on for so long that I genuinely had to take breaks and not read because I was getting burnt out, but overall I think the last two parts of this book (the epilogue to IWTV and then the final part in San Francisco) really tied up everything nicely, and that's where I determined that yeah, this book deserves more than 3 stars from me.
After finishing this book, I joked with a few friends that now I'm finally free from the clutches of Lestat, but honestly, am I ever really free? I already want to pick up where this book left off and dive into The Queen of the Damned, but I'm holding off if only because I really want to read my other books. I finally feel like I have the freedom to do so, but I know that I'll come to Lestat again and again, no matter how much I try to not think about him. I love this mess of a man!
Anyway suffice to say that The Vampire Lestat has really done a number on me! The slow pace in which I read, coupled with distractions from other books (literally reading other books to take breaks from this), while also rewatching season 2 of the AMC show with my friends has made me absolutely enamored and obsessed with Lestat. I can fully understand why Anne Rice loved her character and guy she created so much. I enjoyed this book way more than Interview With the Vampire (IWTV) in a bunch of different ways. I think it's primarily because the book version of Lestat (and also the TV series, let's be real) is way more interesting to me than Louis, but there's also the added piece of the fact that both Lestat and Louis are unreliable narrators in their own respective ways. It was also interesting to see Lestat's perspective in general, though, with bits of his side of the story in IWTV but also just everything before. Lestat is also the craziest narrator ever, and the fact that I could probably start a count of how many times he's burst out into tears is hilarious to me (I'm like 95% sure there's a count of this already somewhere online). Also, hello?? The vampire lore in this? The origins of vampires?? That really threw me off, but I'm so curious to see everything tie in. Not only that, but god, Armand? The way his character was built up even more in this, I genuinely did enjoy it. And of course we can't forget my favorite character of all time in this novel. Gabrielle my beloved. This book genuinely had more lovable characters to me than IWTV, and I am excited to see more of them as I go to read more of the books in this series.
My only grievance with this book (and series in general tbh) is the fact that Anne Rice's narrations and the way she writes things can go on and on for so long that I genuinely had to take breaks and not read because I was getting burnt out, but overall I think the last two parts of this book (the epilogue to IWTV and then the final part in San Francisco) really tied up everything nicely, and that's where I determined that yeah, this book deserves more than 3 stars from me.
After finishing this book, I joked with a few friends that now I'm finally free from the clutches of Lestat, but honestly, am I ever really free? I already want to pick up where this book left off and dive into The Queen of the Damned, but I'm holding off if only because I really want to read my other books. I finally feel like I have the freedom to do so, but I know that I'll come to Lestat again and again, no matter how much I try to not think about him. I love this mess of a man!