Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)

Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles #1)

3.92 of 5 stars 3.92  ·  rating details  ·  239,897 ratings  ·  4,888 reviews
Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.
Paperback, 342 pages
Published August 31st 2004 by Ballantine Books (first published 1976)
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
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Kat Kennedy
If you would kindly look at my shelves, you might notice that I've read a good chunk of vampire novels written in the past two decades. It seemed strange to me, though, that I still hadn't read one of the more important ones.

Now, I don't think it's because this book is particularly brilliant or a masterpiece. Yet it does represent an important paradigm shift in the representation of vampires in modern literature. Whilst Vampires are still unaccountably evil in this novel, they are also relatabl...more
Gus
I hate Anne Rice's writing so much that if it and I were in a romantic comedy together we'd be destined to fall in love and be married by the end of the movie.
Kat Lowe
When I read this series (a couple decades ago), I remember being confounded by the fact that I loved the character Lestat. I mean the guy was a self-absorbed vampire, fer gosh sakes...

Looking back, I suspect that the reason this Anne Rice series was such a hit with me was because Lestat oozed style and life force. And he definitely wasn't a quitter. I knew I was hooked when Lestat single-handedly fought off an entire pack of wolves...and that was before he became a vampire.

If you found Twilight...more
Mark
One of the rare few books I couldn't finish. I could not empathize with the lead character at all - once he turned into a vampire I would be regularly bombarded with paragraphs describing how goddamn beautiful everything was now that he could see them with his vampire eyes. The forest was beautiful, the night sky was beautiful, the homeless people were beautiful...not normally, mind you, only when seen through vampire eyes.

These special vampire eyes might be the reason why Louis (narrator) and L...more
Shovelmonkey1
Mar 08, 2012 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who think that the history of Vampirism starts and ends with edward cullen
Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list
Poor vampires. Such a bad press over the years what with all the blood sucking, neck snapping and general ravaging of virgins, maidens and anyone with a taste for Gothic-style bedroom furniture and an open window.

Still, now that Edward Cullen and his pan-faced fan base of moody teens have infiltrated popular culture, replacing the stereotypical images of pale, foppish young men in lacy cuffs and brocaded velvet jackets with a utilitarian Gap-Style wardrobe of urban wear (and a slightly sulky lo...more
Becky
Oy... Can a book be disappointing if I expected not to like it? Or, rather, can I be disappointed in it?

Yep.

This was seriously boring. And repetitive. And boringly repetitive. And unexciting and also it rehashed the same things over and over. And over. Did I mention it was boring? Because it was. Even more than I expected. At about 100 pages in, I was like "OK, this isn't terrible, that's good." And then... It just stayed right there. At "Not Terrible" level. Nothing interesting happened, noth...more
Cecilia
Sep 11, 2012 Cecilia rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: vampire lovers
Shelves: anne-rice, vampires
Este fue el libro que hizo que, durante varios años de mi vida, anne rice fuera una de las escritoras que más leía. Y no tenía nada que ver con ser "gótico", si no que, simplemente sus personajes me parecían sumamente reales. La soledad, la miseria, el odio y el amor, son emociones humanas, no vampíricas, por lo tanto, no es difícil comprender por qué tantas personas se "enamoraron" de sus vampiros y siguieron toda la saga de novelas vampíricas que esta mujer creo. Otro de los puntos importantes...more
Gaijinmama
I am going to confess that I didn't read this book until 1993, after I'd seen the movie. I couldn't handle horror movies or scary books at the time, but Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and a surprisingly good Tom Cruise really got my attention.
Now I'm a bona fide fan. I'm working toward reading everything Rice has written, and now I enjoy many other authors who write about vampires.
It wasn't just that the vampire dudes were soooo totally hot in the movie. As is usually the case, the book turned ou...more
Ren
I first read this book in High School and my sad gothic self immediately fell in love with its beautiful, damaged characters. For years this book haunted me. The rest of the Vampires books were pulpy fun but this book really had something. She captured something here and her almost baroque prose really carries the story.

Later in life, I came to realize that Interview is a kind of Catcher In The Rye for goths. Louis is turned into a vampire and continues his search for the answers: who he is, wh...more
Emily  O
May 24, 2009 Emily O rated it 2 of 5 stars
Recommended to Emily by: my mom
It was... ok. The writing was ok and it was an easy read, but the past tense thing got a little boring after awhile, and honestly, I just couldn't make myself like any of the characters. I mean, really. Am I the only one who wanted to smack Louise and tell him to get over himself already? I know he was upset over being a vampire and all, but he complained about it for like 200 years! You'd think he'd get over it by then. So, while I thought the book was mildly entertaining, I think it would have...more
Marvin
You need to get here right away. This whole event has a Lovecraftian feel. But when you get here it will have an Anne Rice feel. Because you're gay.

The above quote, which is recited as well I can remember it, is from John Dies at the End by David Wong. I quote it in this review of Interview With the Vampire because it evokes a certain atmosphere that Rice has created in her version of vampire lore. Not that I think Louis, Lestat or anyone who reads Ann Rice is gay. Well, I always wondered about...more
Daniel Marcos
I really wanted lo like this book, my hopes where high, because I LOVE vampire books and this is one of the most important, and it is without a doubt, the most boring one.

I hate Anne Rice's writing, it makes me want to cut my veins.

Let me give you an example:

My keyboard is very beatiful, I like how the "Q" feels underneath my finger when I press the button to type the letter "Q" I also like how the "E" feels underneath my finger when I press the button to type the letter "E" I also like how the...more
Jason Pettus
Okay, I confess, I've actually read the first three of the novels in this fantastical series; but that they declined in quality so rapidly and profoundly that I just couldn't continue after that. Still, though, this first book of the series continues to be surprisingly strong, even if it single-handedly brought about an entire "goth industry" that threatens to turn all of Rice's original material into parodies of itself. A sprawling epic that is as much a vivid fictional history of the multicult...more
Clint
I'm so fucking sick of sexy, depressed vampires. Maybe it was creative for this old prune to have written this book from the point of view of the vampire way back then, and maybe it's not the book itself but everything surround it (the fans, the repuation, the cult!) that makes me hate it so much. I liked the movie a lot more. This is for stupid goth kids who are too fat to have sex as much as they'd like. Vampires in my opinion should be badass scary monsters that drink the hell out of everyone...more
Joelle
I thought it was slow, difficult to read. I finished it only by sheer determination, not out of pleasure.
Rumi
May 05, 2011 Rumi rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to Rumi by: Vennie
"Interview with the Vampire" is a truly remarkable book. Without claiming to be a fantasy know-it-all, I'd like to say that the characters in this book are probably some of the most well-developed fantasy creatures out there. Each one has their own doubts, fears, hopes, and a whole system of values. They might not always act as expected from them, but then again, do they have to be perfect, all-knowing, wise and so very distant from humans every single time? What Anne Rice has created is not onl...more
Black Elephants
I proudly spent the first part of my weekend with the undead, meaning that I watched episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a television show that is glorious, an example of genius and just neat-o. I enjoy my cheese. So, it seemed logical to delve further into the vampiric canon and finally buy Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire.

First, it must be understood that I have a history with this book. Aside from already seeing the movie (which I thought was fine) and reading Rice's Mayfair trilogy, I...more
Tracy
Nov 17, 2008 Tracy rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who tends to read a little slower
This book was a slow read, and I didn't find it very interesting. The narrative drifts in and out of metaphorical prose, making it difficult to understand what was really happening and what was artistic expression. The author became so caught up in the love of her own prose that she afflicted the reader with the mental haze of her storyteller. I tend to read at a faster pace, and many passages required re-reading to grasp what really was going on. If this was the only problem with the book, I mi...more
Christina Stind
This is my first Anne Rice novel and her writing reminds me of Stephen King - they both drag you into their worlds and keep you there, making you race though it to the end as fast as possible to find out what happens.
Interview with the Vampire is the story of Louis mostly, how he became a vampire at the hands of Lestat, how they together made the child vampire Claudia, how Claudia and Louis parted ways with Lestat and went out into the world to search for other vampires and finally found what t...more
QiJia 치쟈
This book was on sales and seeing this is Ms Rice's best work I thought I'd give it a try
well the starting was boring
then I wanted to give up as Louis is so damn whinny with life and death and existence
however Claudia came in I thought finally it's going to get interesting
well sadly I'm wrong
Louis is just so emo and depressing with his philosophy of life and death and existence with what constitute moral conducts and all
the whole book is basically a repetition of the same philosophy
with Louis...more
Brooke Hargett
Interview with a Vampire was a completely different kind of book than anything I have ever read. I probably never would have picked it up, but it was the book of choice for bookclub this month. I was very surprised by how much I liked it because typically I don't read vampire books (with the exception of the Twilight saga, and come on, EVERYONE read those) and I would have thought this book would be too slow for my liking. But for some reason, I found myself really enjoying it.

The way it is writ...more
Star
I'd loved that you get a person talking to a vampire and there is no threat that it will go at you and that it's telling you it's life story or actually how it became what it is. the journey it had taken over the centuries and knowing who actually turned it to what it is now. plus wanting to know of it's origin and the oldest of the old of it's kind.
Kitiara
Dec 07, 2008 Kitiara rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Cualquier lector interesado en vampiros
Recommended to Kitiara by: My sister
Esta primera novela vampírica de Anne Rice, es un claro ejemplo de lo que la literatura gótica es. Hubo un antes y un después en los libros de vampiros, después de esta trilogia.

Si bien el resto de sus novelas de vampiros tienen una fluidez, una rítmica y un estilo totalmente diferentes, no se puede apreciar la trilogía sin llegar a amar y a odiar a este libro.

Es oscuro y angustioso. La acción sucede muy lentamente, y sin embargo cuando ocurre es casi violentamente rápida.

Te deja con un regusto...more
Michelle
I first read The Vampire Chronicles in the 1980s when I was a teenager. I loved them even then, but I'm getting a lot more out of them now that I'm older.

Interview isn't my very favorite of the lot, but I have to give it 5-stars for introducing us to a dark, modern incarnation of the vampire and for setting up an incredibly complex world using just the seed of original vampire lore. While this one reads a bit more more commercial than the second book, The Vampire Lestat (putting up that review...more
Aik
I went in expecting to hate this, seeing that it's meant to have caused the decline of vampire fiction and all. I didn't see this while reading it. Perhaps it's the fault of later books in the series.

The book has its problems. The 'interview' parts are jarring and unnecessary, and the story would have been better told without them. There's also an extreme 'lolwut?' moment where the main character starts acting from impossible to understand motives. Other than this, everything is good.

Also, There...more
Betza
Es el Primer libro de la saga y pues era el que me faltaba por leer, si lo se como pude haber hecho eso, pues bien haciendolo.

Yo ya tenia espectativas de como era louis, de su forma de pesar, de actuar y de vivir, y sinceramente louis me parece el vampiro mas debil de todos, es el mas sentimental, el mas humano entre vampiros. Louis fue creado por lestat (quien sinduda alguna es mi vampiro favorito), quien lo convierte en vampiro debido a su desenfreano entrega a la muerte, y sintiendo un gran a...more
Lotus
Louis is so damaged by his immortality in this book and it's a hard fact to turn away from. All he wanted was an end to his mortal suffering, yet what he was given was prolonged and ultimately bitter. I've seen the movie and was hoping to find something more in Louis but there was nothing. His lament was just so constant.

Claudia's frustration at her situation and Louis' suffering was palpable. I feel more for her plight than any other. To be a child forever would leave a terrible mark on one and...more
Afsheen
What a read this was. Were to start ?
from the very get go the book took a hold of me. It was well written and easy to read.
And being a lover of Buffy and Angel This is more in the content of what I believe the lure of Vampire to be. The dark and tutored undead.
The relationships of Louise :
The one with Claudia is born out of an urge to have one true companion that will be there for ever, that will never leave and be dependent up on him. he does love her in his own way, the real question is if...more
Erika
I remember my mother telling me she liked the interview with the vampire movie a lot, and i think i saw it but it was a long time ago, so i don't really remember having seen it, only my mother telling me she liked the movie.

Later when i was wandering through the Goodreads pages i saw this book, and i was fairly excited with this book and the whole series, more for all the good opinions about it, that i thought it was a book i should totally read, and thought i would love it.

It was a nice book, i...more
Peter
I have the audible audiobook version as it took me many years to get round to finally 'reading' this book, but I loved it. I think it has so many great characters and ideas and the prose is so atmospheric and alive, helped here by a good reading by Simon Vance.

The characters are paradoxically human in their dilemmas and concerns with death, immortality, morality, and the truth of life. I loved the way Louis describes things, especially his many description of heightened emotional or altered sta...more
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topics  posts  views  last activity   
Would you recommend this series? 241 620 May 03, 2013 10:35am  
Louis, Lestat and Armand, Romantic Relationships? 8 81 May 01, 2013 10:24am  
If a virgin becomes a vampire, can her hymen be breached? 34 384 Apr 09, 2013 03:16am  
the school 1 41 Mar 20, 2013 07:23am  
Movie Rant! 15 167 Mar 14, 2013 12:32pm  
Movie and Book 16 118 Mar 04, 2013 12:18am  
Any other vampire books like interview with the vampire/ the vampire lestat e.t.c 80 460 Jan 28, 2013 05:14am  
Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)
Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)
Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)
Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)
Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)

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Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien) is a best-selling American author of gothic, supernatural, historical, erotica, and later religious themed books. Best known for The Vampire Chronicles, her prevailing thematical focus is on love, death, immortality, existentialism, and the human condition. She was married to poet Stan Rice for 41 years until his death in 2002. Her books have sold near...more
More about Anne Rice...
The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2) The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles, #3) The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches, #1) The Tale of the Body Thief (The Vampire Chronicles, #4) Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles, #5)

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