Status
Call number
Publication
Description
Fantasy. Fiction. Horror. Literature. HTML:Vampires . . . they ache, they love, they thirst for the forbidden. They are your friends and lovers, and your worst fears. "A major new voice in horror fiction . . . an electric style and no shortage of nerve."�BooklistAt a club in Missing Mile, N.C., the children of the night gather, dressed in black, look for acceptance. Among them are Ghost, who sees what others do not; Ann, longing for love; and Jason, whose real name is Nothing, newly awakened to an ancient, deathless truth about his father, and himself. Others are coming to Missing Mile tonight. Three beautiful, hip vagabonds�Molochai, Twig, and the seductive Zillah, whose eyes are as green as limes�are on their own lost journey, slaking their ancient thirst for blood, looking for supple young flesh. They find it in Nothing and Ann, leading them on a mad, illicit road trip south to New Orleans. Over miles of dark highway, Ghost pursues, his powers guiding him on a journey to reach his destiny, to save Ann from her new companions, to save Nothing from himself. . . . "An important and original work . . . a gritty, highly literate blend of brutality and sentiment, hope and despair."�Science Fiction Chronicle.… (more)
User reviews
But it wasn't. I loved it. If I'd been a goth and younger when I read it, I'd probably think it was the book that changed my life. I wasn't and it didn't, but it's still a gem of its genre.
No, the writing is not the best ever- but I don't feel like
It's this, and "Drawing Blood" that provoked fans to really push the world to recognize PZB. It was pure, grassroots word of mouth effort that got her on mainstream bookshelves.
Not that she appreciates that.
She hates "babybats"- aka young goths who loved her vampire novel, and wrote a vicious diatribe against them on her Livejournal. Several fans I know were incensed, and immediately dropped her from their list of favorite authors. The fanfiction community for her horror novels died on the vine. People don't want to buy her other books. Who even knows or cares what she's working on now?
As for Brite's writing style, her descriptions were particularly detailed and lush. Atmospheric might be a good way to describe it. I was totally drawn in to the whole Gothic scene, and I'm sure for readers who never experienced the scene firsthand, Brite's descriptions made them feel as if they were right there, experiencing it firsthand themselves.
Overall, I found the book pretty good, but not great; good enough to keep me reading and interested in what happened next, even if it took a little longer to get there. It also left me curious enough to want to check out Brite's second book, Drawing Blood, an excerpt of which appears at the end of this book. I actually wasn't too impressed after reading the excerpt initially, since I don't like gore, and Brite described one particular scene with a little too much clarity than I cared for, but on reading other reviews of it, it appears that that particular excerpt is the exception rather than the norm. I'd also be interested to see how her writing might've grown from her first full-length novel to the second.
It isn't just sex in this book, but an exploration of how people fall in love, how they stay in love, how they deal with each others' flaws. Being a horror novel (mostly), though, it often wanders into the darker parts of love, abuse, and co-dependency,
I liked it, although not as much as Drawing Blood.
I enjoyed the portrayal of New Orleans as a decadent, haunted city, filled with folklore, where vampires party their days away, dining on Chartreuse and Twinkies and blood. Zillah was not nearly as handsome as I remembered, reading it ten years later (I guess I'm jaded on the "bad boy" image), but I can see how Ann would be bewitched by him. I liked the chapters about Steve and Ghost the best - they were the most likable characters - but I couldn't really get behind the two of them as a couple. I guess I'm torn. I liked that it was so less enthusiastically hypersexual of a union than the other pairings, that it was just the one kiss and nothing else... I guess I just have a thing for confused straight guy characters. But I couldn't see it really happening. It was intimate and sweet, but not realistic.
Agh, I love this book, but reviewing it I sound like such a hater. I guess now that I can see the flaws in it, I can appreciate it more. So I'm changing my previous three-star rating to four stars.
The book opens in the French Quarter of New
Years later Nothing runs away from his quiet suburban home and finds a new life with the vampires and his heritage. His friend Ghost has to decide whether he's going to help him or ignore him.
Dark, no-holds barred but not really my kind of read. I almost abandoned it several times but the descriptions kept pulling me back, at the same time the only character I half-way cared for was Ghost.
As we start off we are introduced to all the main players of the book and are made to like and understand them. From the melancholy Christian to the boisterous Zillah, Twig and Molochai we are presented with vampires you probably wouldn't mind getting to know better. That would be a huge mistake. Our other characters are the lost Nothing (whose name used in the context of the book often confused me), the guilt ridden and guilty Steve and beautiful, brave Ghost. As the story goes on we come to realize how horrifying most of these characters are and despite how we are initially made to empathize with them, it is soon obvious that this attraction was a ruse. Easily Ghost is my favorite character of the bunch, as I believe he is meant to be. How these characters are drawn together by destiny or some other force isn't really explained but from the nowhere place of Missing Mile to the wild Mardi Gras of New Orleans following them on their journey to the end quickly becomes imperative to the reader.
This book, well written for all its disturbing content, isn't one for the faint of heart. I know it will be a while before I can get it out of my head and will probably be surprised with some nightmares just when I think I have. Not to mention that it has left me feeling a little bit unclean for the images invoked, as Stephen King stories always had as well. However, it was an intriguing book as well and I can't say that I'll regret reading it despite any lost sleep that might result.
Of the lyrical writing my favorite line, "No," said a voice from the dark doorway. A weary voice, a voice for speaking long after midnight, a voice to be used when all paths are blocked, when castles have fallen to ruin, when morning will not come again."
Many have gone on to copy this style yet Poppy knows how to deliver a story that will make you question sm much and find your still talking about it ten years later.
This book was a huge hit here in England on the goth
As for the characters, everyone has a black and a white side,
They all are souls running wild, wandering in search of something: some place and some people they belong to, running away from loneliness and diversity.
They can't stop, they have to move unavoidably toward a meeting the fate arranged for them ... I'd say a sort of "Easy rider" with vampires
From the first page I fell in love with the wrong character (the more beautiful, cruel, powerful, bastard of them....) It's always this way, so the book also broke my heart, but it was worth to reading it.
Brite does add her own twist to the vampire genre. The book
After writing this review, I actually pitched the book in the garbage. I haven’t done that in a long, long time. It is a drastic step for a bibliophile to take.
So the
I love vampires, and I love audiobooks - so I jumped at the chance to review a vampire
Lost Souls is about three androgynous bisexual (although mostly homosexual) vampires: Zillah (the leader) and his two sidekicks (Molochai and Twig). They come to New Orleans to party during Mardi Gras and they come across a bar that is owned by a vampire named Christian. There is an underage human girl (Jessy) at the bar, and she winds up having sex with Zillah while Christian has sex with Molochai and Twig. Jessy discovers that she is pregnant long after Zillah and his cronies have left New Orleans. Knowing that human females tend to not survive vampire childbirths, Christian takes Jessy in and has a sexual relationship with her throughout her pregnancy. She does indeed die during childbirth and has a boy whom Christian names "Nothing." Hoping to spare him of his destiny, Christian leaves Nothing on a doorstep and hopes the couple will love him as their own and that Nothing will never know of his true identity.
The book then jumps ahead 15 years when Nothing is a teenager, and he feels that he is totally misunderstood. He decides to run away and find the singers of a band whom he idolizes, and he hitches rides to the town where they live. He turns some tricks here and there, and then is picked up by Zillah, Molochai, and Twig. The vampire trio first intended to drain him, but instead have sex with him. Yes, that's right...Zillah has sex with his son, unbeknownst to him.
From here, the book continues on a downward spiral. This was not so much a vampire story, but more a story of getting high, getting drunk, and getting laid. I am a pretty open-minded person, and I wasn't so much bothered by the M/M and M/M/M and even M/M/M/M action - different strokes for different folks and all that. I am not one to judge, and it takes a lot to shock me. But it did really bother me when Zillah and Nothing hooked up. But wait, it gets worse: They do eventually discover that Zillah is Nothing's father, but they still continue having a sexual relationship! And Christian even tries to justify it saying that there are so few of their race left and that, if they can make each other happy, why not? Ok, this is disturbing. Christian also eventually has sex with Nothing, which brings on a whole new level of "ewwwwww" since he had sex with Nothing's mother and is now having sex with her son.
Let's recap: This book contains teenage prostitution, incest, sex with minors (statutory rape), and there was even an incident of rape. There was also another occurrence of incest, this time father/daughter, that I won't even go into because it was just too offensive.
I did not find this book entertaining. I found it dark and disturbing. It was not at all what I expected, and I will be steering clear of this author in the future!
The narrator, Chris Patton, did a fine job with the book. His voice was clear and expressive, and he was probably what kept me listening despite the book's content.
MY RATING: 1 star. I did not enjoy it at all. This was not for me.
I love Brite's ability to create atmosphere. I felt like I was immersed in New Orleans, this hot, sticky, beautiful environment. I could hear the street noise and feel the lights, and I found it a really readable novel.
I don't
So if you like modern, urban stories with vampires and LGBTQ characters, this could definitely be an option for you, but it'll get a 3 star rating for me. c:
tw: rape