Billie Jo Kubat

Seeing into the life of a so-called villain is something that doesn’t happen every day. At the end of Interview with the Vampire, the reader’s feelings toward Lestat are nothing but disgust and disdain. Now, author Anne Rice has given Lestat a chance to tell his story.

The Vampire Lestat is the second book in The Vampire Chronicles Collection by Anne Rice. In Interview with the Vampire we meet Louis, who was transformed into a vampire by Lestat. The first book of the series paints Lestat as a kind of villain. In the book The Vampire Lestat we see things from Lestat’s point of view. Lestat tells the story of his life, and life after death, as a vampire.

Lestat’s story is about his great desire to leave everything and become an actor. We see how this dream soon changes when Magnus sees Lestat and somehow knows about Lestat’s past. Once Magnus meets Lestat he is determined to change Lestat into a vampire. Lestat shows what his life is like after he is changed and long before he meets Louis. Not only is the background of Lestat explored, but so is his relationship with Armand. The book explains the way they acted toward each other in the first book.

Anne Rice outdid herself in this novel because she changed her writing style with this book. In Interview with the Vampire, the author would jump from the past with Louis’s tale to the present when he was being interviewed. The Vampire Lestat starts in the present and then travels back to the beginning of his story and tells the tale of his life. She still has an amazing word selection in the book. Her alliterations bring every scene in front of the reader as if they are watching a play instead of reading a book.

This book is absolutely amazing and one of my personal favorites. This is one of the longer books in “The Vampire Chronicles Collection”, reaching 481 pages. The tale that is told, however, is easily as irresistible as any of Rice’s other stories. The book is filled with action. Just like the first book in the series, The Vampire Lestat does have some slow parts but they work as building blocks to help tell the tale of Lestat.

This book will challenge the reader and will help expand the vocabulary of anyone that reads it. The style of writing that Rice uses can be considered unique and is not seen very much in writing today. I have not read many books that have caused me to pull out a thesaurus while I was reading so that I could understand what was being said. All of Anne Rice’s novels have made me do just that. I would recommend The Vampire Lestat to anyone; it is a wonderful way to explain a person’s imagination and vocabulary.