Billie Jo Kubat

Want a good book to read in the spirit of Halloween? Then I have a wonderful book for you. It follows the theme of vampires and is the third book in The Vampire Chronicles collection by Anne Rice. In the last two books, the tales of Louis and Lestat were the main focus, but in the third novel, the focus is moved to a number of different characters.

The Queen of the Damned is one of the longest books in The Vampire Chronicles collection. This book, like its predecessors, takes a lot of concentration. The Queen of the Damned has the greatest number of characters’ and background characters’ histories. One of the first pages in the book contains an index saying where each individual story is located.

I believe that this book could not have been written or told at the high level that Rice has written the other Chronicle books without telling the different histories. Each new character brings new questions and new interests that are woven into the stories. The characters that readers thought they understood show new sides that make readers think about their original feelings toward that character.

One thing needs to become clear right away: the movie is very different from the book. One of the differences is the number of characters. For instance, Armand and Louis are not in the movie, but they can be considered important characters in the book. The story told by the movie does not go nearly as in-depth as the story in the book. Also, the book explains the relationships differently and more profoundly than the movie does.

While reading this book, there are times when readers may feel as if they are walking beside the different characters. Lestat, Jessica (one of the new characters) and Marius go through many adventures throughout the novel, and the readers may experience the scenes with each character. You seem to grow as Lestat grows as a character. The feelings of stress and anxiety felt by the different characters feel like the readers’ feelings.

Because of Rice’s unique writing talents, it seems easy to understand why the characters are so worried about what Akasha the Queen is going to do. It also seems easy to understand why Lestat was infatuated with Akasha. The power that Akasha shows Lestat can feel as intoxicating to the reader as it does to Lestat.

Rice did a wonderful job of writing the book. She describes each scene with a powerful ability that makes you feel like you are a part of the story by being another character in the book. A thesaurus is needed to read this book at different points in the story because of some difficult language.

I think The Queen of the Damned is a wonderful read. This book is a challenge and will make the reader think about what is going on. There is no way that a person cannot form an opinion about each character. It was impossible not to spend numerous hours reading this book that should have been spent on studying, because I could not put it down. The third Vampire Chronicles novel was an amazing work of writing that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and cannot wait to read again.