How I hate this book - Rated 
I started this book in the early 90's and didn't get more than three or four chapters in before I gave up. I found it at the back of a cupboard and decided to give it another go. I still hated it, found it very dry and boring. I was determined though that this time it would not beat me and I would finish it. It took me two weeks but I made myself get to the end, I was so happy when it was over.
I will never read this book again.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I'VE EVER READ - Rated 
I was always curious about the Vampire Chronicles set of books for years but never actually picked one up and read it. I had seen the films - Interview With The Vampire and Queen Of The Damned, which I had enjoyed.
Well when I saw Interview With The Vampire in a charity shop I had to buy it there and then. On the plus side they where selling it cheap which added to the buy on impulse.
This first novel in The Vampire Chronicles centers around four very different yet almost equally fascinating vampires. The story is that of Louis, a wealthy eighteenth century Louisiana plantation owner who became a vampire in the depths of his despair over his brother's suicide. Lestat, the inscrutable force that hovers above every page of the tale, made Louis a vampire for basically economic reasons; he wanted the wealth that Louis possessed, but he also wanted a companion. Narcissistic and vain, the dapper Lestat does not teach his creation what it means to be a vampire, does not share the secrets he claims to know, does not even help Louis through the soul-shattering change that comes about when the body dies so that it may live eternally. Louis stays with Lestat only because, so far as he knows, there are no other vampires to whom he can turn for help and instruction. His distaste for Lestat grows over the years, however, and in order to keep Louis by his side, Lestat takes a young girl whom Louis had fed upon during a period of emotional turbulence and makes of her a vampire, knowing that Louis could never abandon the child. It is the story of Claudia, doomed to a most tragic life of immortality trapped inside the body of a little girl, that makes this book so powerful in my eyes. Lestat is of course fascinating, Louis is the epitome of tragedy and a fountain of knowledge by way of his questioning, eternally sad nature, but Claudia's story is an unbearably exquisite one. She accepts her vampire nature with some ease, being too young to really ever remember her human childhood, but the growth of Claudia the vampire woman inside the body of Claudia the child is a beautifully painful thing to watch. When she manages to separate Louis and herself from Lestat to go searching for other vampires in Central Europe and eventually Paris, giving dramatic voice to both her love for and hatred of Louis, the door to the dungeons of utter tragedy are thrown asunder. The introduction of the four hundred year old vampire Armand in the second half of the book gives us yet another unique vampire soul to ponder, but Armand at his most vivid pales in comparison to Claudia at her most unprepossessing.
In the end, we are left with Louis and his story, which is full of unanswerable questions. Even the meaning and lesson he tries to express about his miserable existence utterly fail in their influence it has upon the boy chosen to hear his extraordinary story. Literature really provides no better character study of the emotional meaning of vampirism than Louis, however. He became a creature of the night only out of despair, and his development as a new creature on earth proceeded without any instruction whatsoever from the cold Lestat. Thus, he questions everything about his new nature, desperately longing for a mentor. He does not relish the taking of human life, and the thought of creating another creature like himself is anathema to him. He sees vampirism as a curse, eternally wondering if he is indeed a child of Satan doomed to an immortal yet cursed life. The source of his moral suffering is his inability to really give up his human nature, and this causes him a long, long life of torment and pain. Never before had the moral, spiritual, and philosophical nature of the vampire been explored in such depth as that found in this exquisitely beautiful novel, and that is one of the primary reasons why it rivals Stoker in terms of its beauty and resonates with an emotionally hypnotic power that is unmatched in the long tradition of vampire literature.
I know it doesn't sound exciting but it's one hell of a read and because of this book I have become a huge fan and decided to look for and buy the rest. Anne said "it originally started as a short story and I just built upon it and it became a novel which got published" *
These vampires are not the cold hearted killing machines (well Lestat is) that we are used to seeing in films and magazines, these vampires have emotional feeling and Louis is constantly battling with what he has become and his longing for others which are like him upon which he begins a search for them. This book is breath taking and I found it hard to put it down for the night for me to sleep. I would recommend you pick yourself a copy up and see what all the hype is about.
I saw the sequel to it named The Vampire Lestat in a charity shop the week later so I bought that too.
I enjoyed the film but I found in the film with timing restrains they had left a lot out that is in the book so I found the book a lot better then the film - and the screenplay was written by Anne Rice too.
So please pick yourself up a copy and begin to read one of the greatest books ever written and hopefully you will find yourself enjoying it then looking for the rest like I did.
Thank you for reading my review
(* is a quote I took from an interview Anne Rice had about Interview With The Vampire on the special features on the Interview With The Vampire film dvd)
Disappointing - Rated 
After reading the rave reviews on this site, I feel compelled to disagree with its superfluous praise.
I concede that this is an important vampire book and that the movie was absolutely brilliant, but in no way is the book superior to the movie. Anne Rice's tone is dull and monotonous to the point of banality. Overall, I found it painfully boring after watching the movie. Even the movie had a better ending than the book.
Serious readers of fiction won't be impressed with this book, and should rather read the classic, Dracula, for those interested in vampires.
wow - Rated
Read this many years ago and I loved it. It was a treat to read something that whisked me away to another world. Anne Rice writes with such sensuality and sophistication, I could smell,taste and feel this book long after I'd finished it. On the strength of this one I read the other vampire chronicles and this is one of the best.
Interview with The Vampire - Rated
I was given this book in 1992 and, unable to put it down, read it in a single afternoon. The beauty and sophistication of Anne Rice's prose far surpasses anything else I've ever read in this genre. Through her vampires, Rice gets to the heart of the concerns and fears of modern civilisation and the sense of alienation inherent in modern generations. I truly believe that Anne Rice changed the face of vampire fiction for ever and if you haven't read this book I recommend that you buy it immediately!!! And if you've never read anything by Anne Rice, I would strongly recommend you start with this one. You will not be disappointed.
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