Interview with a Vampire & Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

These are the classic books that ring with the kind of American romanticism reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe. If you've only ever read Twilight, you need to pick up these two book and re-educate yourself about vampires. They're not ashamed of their bloodlust, usually eat girls instead of mooning after them, and certainly aren't sparkly.

Interview with a Vampire deals with the philosophy behind the supernatural beings, but only during Louis's reflections with the journalist. When he's telling his life's story, he's descriptive and brutally honest. I appreciated that because the "memoir" could have easily been rambling and over-analyzed. I also liked that Rice wasn't afraid to make a kid a member of the undead.

The movie lives up to the book as far as maintaining plot and casting appropriately (yes, I even like Tom Cruise as Lestat). However, I don't think the film comes close to dealing with their level of brutality as described in the book.

I cannot say enough how good of a book Queen of the Damned is; it truly was Rice's best. The book is written by Lestat in response to Interview with a Vampire and explains how he came to be as evil as he was. One event that twisted him was a brush with the mother of all vampires, an ancient Egyptian queen who is coming to avenge her attackers in modern New York City.

The movie was hokey at best, but I still own it because Stuart Townsend is an awesome vampire. The love story wasn't necessary, but Aaliyah was the perfect vampire queen.

Any other Lestat novels are terrible; the only other one I kind of liked in her vampire series was Merrick, but it wasn't good enough for me to pick up the other vampire novels in the series. I intend to read The Mummy and The Witching Hour, but the vampire novels just can't get better than the first two.

Goodreads links to Book 1 and Book 2