Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating glimpse into the mind of a tortured vampire...
Review: First book in the Vampire Chronicles, Ms Rice introduces to us a tortured vampire named Louis.
Louis was made in 1794 by a notorious vampire named Lestat. Lestat was notorious for not following the 'rules' and known amongst other vampires as the 'brat prince'.
Louis opens up to an interviewer after nearly 200 years of silence and tells his story of torment and loneliness in which the writer publishes named...Interview with the Vampire.
Louis is a soulful vampire looking for redemption and forgiveness in a cold world that loathes him and his kind. He hates the kill, lives nearly off of the blood of rats and evildoers. He hates what he had become but lacks the courage to kill himself, because, where would he go? What is out there beyond this world?
Telling the sad tale of his undead life with his sire Lestat and how he sees his sire as the brutal and cold soul he is. Heartlessly killing and feeding off of human misery until Louis cannot take anymore and takes off.
Lestat has no patience for the 'child' and seems to be vicious and deadly. We feel for the gentle soul of Louis. Yet we see the enormous love Lestat feels for Louis and does indeed understand his torment.
Through the wild streets of New Orleans during the 18th century to the opulence of Paris and beyond, we are taken on a journey like no other. Louis tells of his 'sunshine' when Lestat makes another vampire, this time a child of 6 named Claudia and how they become inseparable.
65 years they live, hunt and travel together as a family, until tragedy strikes and Louis cannnot go on. Driving a knife right through the bond they shared, Louis sets out on his own for the last hundred years alone, looking for meaning in his cursed life and finding none.
Make sure to read this one first and then the next one called 'The Vampire Lestat', 'The Queen of the Damned', 'Tale of the Body Thief' and so on.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: From the moment I started reading it, I couldn't put it down!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best vampire books ever written
Review: This book is wonderful. I am not usually a horror fan, because unless done right, horror can be lame and boring. I used to think only King could do horror, but Anne Rice really brings her vampires to life. Louis is a depressed vampire. Being over 200, he has had a lot of hardships in life. He tells his life story to a an interviewer, who is only refer to as the boy, who he first planned to be his victim. Throughout the story, you meet many interesting characters. Such as, Lestat, Claudia, and Armand. Lestat is supposed to be mean and hated, but I can't help but love him. He's so evil and charming. You wish you could do half of the things he does. The way this story unfolded is wonderful. Anne Rice is a wordful writer. The story is sad and yet beautiful. The only problem is at times she can be a bit too descritive. The story is exciting, detailed and never boring. I rarely give books five stars, but I did for this one. Why? The books was near perfect and had little errors. I was going to give it four, but I decided on five because I know I will most likly never read a vampire book by another author that is better than this. On a final note, I've also seen the movie. I saw the movie before reading the book. The book and movie are very similar, but there are many differences. The book verison will still surprise. There's a lot of juciey little tid bits the movie left out that are worth reading. The beginning, some of the middle, and the end of the book are different than the movie. In my opinion, the book verison is better. So, even if you've seen the movie give the book a read. The only problem is you may get addicted to Rice books like I am.
Rating:
Summary: Absorbing, haunting
Review: Even though this novel was first published in 1976, I didn't read it until 2003. Oh, have I missed an excellent book for all those years! Rice is a natural-born, stylish writer, one who
retells the vampire story, and makes the vampire sympathetic. The life he leads is half-repulsive, half-seductive: part of the
reader wants to live the life he lives; the other half wants to
run away as fast as possible. A disturbing combination, yet
Rice pulls off the feat, and wrote a classic novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks any emotional punch
Review: _Interview with the Vampire_ is a train wreck of a novel. I'm told that some later Rice books are better, but based on this, I don't think I want to try them. The book's main problem is simply that Rice is not a very good writer. The storyline has a lot of promise, but it never pays off. The "interview" format of the book is irrating and unnecessary. It simply pulls us out of the story into an uninteresting situation where we know nothing of consequence is going to happen. Then, during the story itself, Rice's prose is so flowery and unsubstantial that it is difficult to gain any understanding of what characters are supposed to be feeling. Often the prose actually obscures the action with it's insistent long-windedness. The reason I'm giving two stars instead of one, is because Rice does manage a few really nice images, and occasionally is able to draw a scene for a page or two that genuinely incites empathy in the reader. For example, the way Louis first attacks Claudia, and then struggles with what to do with her later, is very well done. These kind of moments are the exception, not the rule though. Utlimately, Louis is a big whiner, while Lestat, Claudia, and Armand are never more than cardboard characters that I could basically not care less about. Don't bother with this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A good but odd book
Review: Interview with a Vampire was a great book, proberly the best book of the Vampire Chronicle. However, I find it very disturbing that EVERY vampire in Rice's novel's is gay.
Rating: 
Summary: poetically cynical
Review: this book gives a very poetic, cynical view to the lives of vampires. it's about a man named Loius in the late eighteenth century who is made into a vampire by a very vain and gluttonous vampire named Lestat and their adventures until about the end of the nineteenth century. Loius has a lot of regrets about letting himself become a vampire and Lestat doesn't provide any consolation with his gluttonous ways of living off of humans without regret. this is a very beautifully detailed horror with lots of mystery and intrigue. it's not a good stand-alone story for the faint-of-heart because Loius is so miserable throughout the book. however, if one reads this book and then reads its sequal, THE VAMPIRE LESTAT, one will be extrememly happy of the outcome of these two characters after reading both and they will love this book even more. p.s. THE VAMPIRE LESTAT is a much more light-hearted book full of fun adventures. it has a lot of mysteries revealed that were left unsolved in INTERVIEW. so don't stop after INTERVIEW, read on and be amazed!
Rating:
Summary: Seductive; exquisite writing about...vampires?
Review: I don't know how Rice did it, but she had managed to elevate the genre of horror, eerie weirdness, seduction, evil, and the whole field of 'vampire-ism' to a literary level. In this debut novel, she introduces the Vampire Lestat, and voila! an entire new world opens up, a new genre practically: 'Vampire Literature!' Lord, the woman can write, and although I'm a fan of neither horror nor vampires, I was sucked right in.
Read this before you read her others, and then read everything she writes.
Rating:
Summary: Is the movie actually better?
Review: Reading this book after seeing the movie (something I rarely do) gives me a different viewpoint than I would usually have, and it makes the book much harder to rate. On the one hand, the book fails to be as gripping because I already know what is going to happen, and then on the other the novel provides much more detail than the movie ever could (one of the reasons books are almost always better). I was surprised to find at how closely the movie actually follows the book. Scene for scene, very little is missing in the movie, and the only real difference between the two is the ending (which has more closure in the movie). One thing I will say about the book, is that Anne Rice is a talented writer. Even though not much happens in most of the book, you will be captivated by her prose. However, I feel she plays to this strength to conceal the weakness of the story itself. Her verbose style draws out the story so long that it doesn't surprise me at all that the film makers were able to easily compress it and fit it all into the movie. Readers of classic literature won't mind this as it was the predominant style of writing. Other won't mind either because as I said, she is gifted with prose. Unfortunately, those looking for an exciting, plot driven (something fine literature isn't supposed to be) story, may be disappointed. Many years ago when this book came out, I can see this being a much more fascinating look into the mind of a vampire through the character study of the main character Louis. But since Anne Rice is pretty much responsible for oversaturated vampire craze we have today, this book doesn't seem like anything new (even if it did start it all). One does have to give credit to Rice for being the original, and this book is not bad. It's just one of those books that had it's time, and were it to be released today, would not nearly make as much of an impact. It is however good enough to get me to read the next book, and that is an accomplishment.
Rating:
Summary: Intricate, panoramic, luscious tale - ruined by poor writing
Review: "Interview with the Vampire" is the powerful, disturbing story of the experiences of a vampire, Louis, as he evolves from a young man to a fledgling vampire to a mature member of the undead. Its characters are interesting and its plotline is complex and well-measured. The story is beautiful and sad and highly compelling. But the book is not beautiful or compelling, and its primary sadness is the waste it makes of such a wonderful story. Rice's prose is heavy and flowery, sometimes lush but very often simply too much. Often her descriptions are incomprehensible or interfere with the action. The book's language enjoys a few moments of beauty, but these are smothered by the sheer density of words. Worse, Rice sells out her own story. The convention of the book is that it is an interview: a character who is referred to only as a "young man" or "boy" is taping his one-sided conversation with Louis. The interviewer serves no discernible purpose and the interview destroys the story's end: instead of ending Louis's story with the powerful, well-written conclusion it deserves, she neglects it entirely (failing to exploit the opportunities for insight and emotion her well-crafted story offers), instead ending the book with several dull pages about the interviewer himself. Poor writing aside, "Interview with the Vampire" is not an unpleasant read. It's long, and it has many slow points, but it's worthwhile for serious science fiction fans.
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