Ever since The Twilight Saga became a thing, vampire novels have gotten a bad reputation for being sparkling, angst filled, vegetarians with relationship problems. Don’t worry this is not a review of the Twilight Saga books, because that would be pure torture, but this is a review about a book with some vampires with actual bite.

Thanks to the movie release in 1994, pretty much everyone knows about Anne Rice’s “Interview with a Vampire”.  For those of you who are still in the dark about Rice’s debut gothic horror novel, this story is the tale of a 200-year-old vampire Louis tells a reporter, whom is only referred to as “the boy”, about his long life. Louis tells the boy about his interactions with his maker, Lestat de Lioncourt, a vampire child, Claudia, and many other characters that he has met after his transformation. In short, the movie is a fairly spot on adaptation with the book.

It turns out that the book originated from a short story that Rice wrote in the late 1960’s that was only 30 pages long and not written from Louis’s point of view. A few years later in 1970 Rice’s daughter was diagnosed with leukemia and died two years later, which was the original spark that brought Rice back to writing. Rice finished the 346-page book in 5 weeks and used her daughter as the inspiration for the character Claudia. On May 5th, 1976 “Interview with a Vampire” hit the bookstores.

The truth is that this is my first time reading any of Anne Rice’s novels. With her status and reputation in the world of writers, one might feel that Rice is on the same level as Jane Austen or Robert Louis Stevenson. However, once you dive into her dark romantic worlds that initial feeling begins to change. “Interview with a Vampire” is an emotional novel bursting with details that touch on all of the five senses. Within the first twenty pages, I could tell that Louis was probably going to be a different character from the one that Brad Pitt portrayed in the movie.

Louis describes Lestat with more affection that can only be described as love. At the same time Lestat’s insanity is on a different level than what Tom Cruse brought to the character. The emotions that Rice brings to these immortal creatures have the ability to make a reader question the inner workings of these characters. Their thoughts, desires, and actions are all questioned with every choice that is made.

If you are a fan of the 1994 movie and have not read the book, I suggest you pick up a copy as soon as possible. It blows anything that was written in the last 40 years out of the water.