Rating: Summary: Excellent, a classic in the genre... Review: I am not sure what 'older' readers will think of this book (from the review though, it seems you do!)...Anyway, I myself am only 13 years old...I have always liked reading about werewolves, vampires, magic, horror, etc, even though most of the teen books are fairly inadequate examples of the category.
I first saw this as a movie. My mother actually told me that it was on, casually, and it seemed like something I would like. I watched it without really watching it; I was mostly playing my pc, but the next time I saw it I thought it was indeed very well made. So, anyhow, a big time lapse, and I am at an Eckerd's one day and I see it as a novel. I buy it, and my mother then expressively prohibits me to read further when I bring it home.
So, I was at the bookstore...and I picked it up. I don't know what drew me towards it, but for the longest time I brooded on simply buying it, reading a bit. My redeeming arguments were that I am more mature than most teenagers, and anyway, its not like they haven't put on television what they published before.
This was an infinitely long process for me. I buy it eventually, hiding it, loving it, and am instantly drawn into it. Rice is truly a master of manipulating the feelings, and giving her a characters a 3-D realism, so that all their motives seem justified, so that almost nothing sticks out as awkward or forced, or untrue to the character.
Her attention to detail, while long winded and rather boring at some points sculpts a full world for her characters. There is very little to criticize about her work, other than that I did find myself looking for lighter, happier moments. I waited and waited until I finally realized the book's depressing tone isn't just temporary. This was certainly disappointing, I wish that just once there was a point, if only briefly, where you can rest without being bogged down by the sorrowful tone.
I finished it today. In some places, I feel the movie version is slightly better, like the ending (I will not give away either version's, though). However it was certainly much better that in the book we can experience all the movie's trivial characters, like Santiago and Madeleine and the theatre's vampires. Rice truly creates a fully-dimensional, self-sustained world.
I would probably not recommend this book to any of my peers simply because of certain, highly sexual scenes, though no actual description, even of kissing. Most were not, granted, however there is definitely a maturity issue involved.
A great book, truly a classic, for matured audiences.
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