Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Paris, France

I am not much of a fantasy/supernatural reader, so this book was out of my comfort zone. The only other vampire books or media I have consumed have been the Twilight books and movies, and that was in middle school and high school. Honestly, I struggled with this one a bit.

The book is Louis de Pointe du Luc’s life story told to an unnamed journalist. Louis’ vampire life began in 1791 after a vampire named Lestat turned him into a vampire so they could live together on Louis’ plantation. Louis and Lestat had an abusive, codependent relationship, and Lestat turned a small girl into a vampire to be their “daughter” so that Louis wouldn’t leave him. Eventually, Louis and Claudia part from Lestat and travel throughout Europe. Their last destination together is Paris, where they meet a group of vampires that answer more of their questions of what it means to be a vampire.

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One of my struggles with this book is also one of my favorite aspects. It is fairly intellectual. But I found Louis to be frustratingly passive. He was constantly searching for the “meaning” behind being a vampire and was such an “intellectual,” but yet he would just go along with the group like a blade of grass in the wind. He was never motivated to seek answers or help his situation - he just wanted answers to magically materialize.

But, I liked the themes of mental health struggles (or in an interview Rice, in very 1970’s fashion, called the vampires “lost souls.” What would inspire you to live indefinitely? Relationships? Relationships between vampires could last forever, but what do you talk about? Natural beauty? One of my favorite passages was when Louis couldn’t wait to see the Mediterranean. But when he saw it, it wasn’t the brilliant, shimmering blue that he remembered. Because he can’t ever go out during the sunlight, the Mediterranean was always black to him. Sensual pleasures? For a vampire, that is embracing the act of killing. Knowledge? Art? Wouldn’t that get boring after some amount of time? Life would eventually grow boring. Especially if you weren’t some infinitely rich aristocrat that doesn’t have to work throughout their undeath (now I want to read a Millennial vampire book…haha). As someone who has struggled to understand the point of a single human lifetime, I couldn’t think of anything more terrifying than immortality (especially in this economy).

Everything felt like a cliche, although that is not Rice’s fault. I’m sure the other vampire media I have passively consumed throughout my life have taken elements from this book/series, but I still groaned out loud at some of the cliches (like Louis hating to kill humans).

And anything that involves a Pedophiliac relationship (ambiguous or not, “actual” age older or not, I do not care), is never going to get anything higher than 3 stars in my book. I would not have given this book anything higher than that anyways…but I digress. Pedophilia is bad, mkay.

It’s good for me to read books outside of my go-to genres. I read this book as part of an online book club group that I’ve since left. I am not going to read any of the others from the series, but I didn’t totally hate this one. And it knocked out some challenge prompts.

Review by the Numbers

Overall: 3/5

Writing: 3/5

Message: 4/5

Plot: 3/5

Character Development: 2/5

Challenges Satisfied:

- France (Reading My Way Around the World Challenge)

- A Book set in Victorian Times (2022 PopSugar Reading Challenge)

- A Book with a Non-Human Protagonist (2022 Fully Booked Reading Challenge)

- A Book that Involves Arson (2022 Gotta Read ‘Em All Challenge)