EXQUISITE CORPSE

Rating:
Summary: No monsters in this horror story.
Review: In her most daring novel yet, Poppy Z. Brite twists the conventions of the growing body of serial killer fiction and non-fiction, lifting the subject matter out of the literary gutter and placing it firmly in her own world of sensual, intellectual horror. Left behind are the squinty-eyed predators and damsels in distress, long-winded explanations of why The Monster is The Monster and how _everyone_ is a victim in this way or that. There are no victims in Brite's story, only participants, all very capable of digging their own graves, thank you very much.

_Exquisite Corpse_, both cautionary and celebratory, is a unique and important addition to serial killer mythology. The story neither confirms nor denies the existence of "evil." It, in fact, never raises the question. It accepts all acts and behaviors as equal, sees the potential for all acts and behaviors in all of us, and tells us to act responsibly. Take responsibility for your own life and happiness--create your own moral boundaries. This is Brite's world, and the perfect environment for serial killers.

Only for those willing to consider The Other Way as viable.

Rating:
Summary: a downward spiral.
Review: a lame imitation of the trent reznor lyrics she claims to adore. severe yet ultimately boring. yes, there are gators in the backwaters of louisiana...blahblahblah. we've heard all the swamp mumbojumbo before and this time around, it's far less enchanting. jay, andrew, and especially tran seem to have gotten dumber than her previous characters (if that's possible), phonier, and totally uninteresting. the story lacks a story. it's crude and offensive gay sex threaded with over the top depictions of dead bodies that merely bore and annoy rather than disgust and frighten.oh and everyone has aids.

Rating:
Summary: Brite's recent works seem to be losing their unique edge.
Review: It seems that in Brite's recent attempts, she has had to veer into more grotesque and blatantly shocking prose in order to attract an aufience. While she writes for those people who enjoy a bit of decadence now and then, when delicately laced through a work, she appears to have resorted to the use of baser material--especially in Exquisite Corpse. While I am an avid reader of her work, I have come to sense that it's quality is on its decent. The characters did not beceome as real or believable as they have in the past, as in Lost Souls. While I would recommend Exquisite Corpse, I would not recommend it highly, and hope that Brite will return to her roots with her extraordinary, seductively daring style.

Rating:
Summary: Poppy has delivered Exquisite Filth
Review: A previous fan of Poppy Z. Brite, I still praise her as a wonderfully descriptive writer. After reading this book, that's about all I can say. Her portrayal of New Orleans in every aspect actually places you in the heart of soul of this soulful city and all of it's many realms. After this, she completely falls apart.

Her characters leave little to be desired as they are dragged along hopelessly out of control of everything that they do. In the past, her portrayal of gay men was a tribute to love, yet this book is simply insulting in every perversion that that the gay life of the French Quarter has to offer. She writes of a lifestyle completely based on debauchery and filth with no redeeming value whatsoever. It's almost 300 pages of gay-bashing. Even the love story between Tran and Luke is filled with hateful events and violent addictions.

The hideous nature of the graphic descriptions of flesh eating and torture will, I'm sure, be pleasing to some people, but it left this reader with a bad taste in her mouth. Poppy, no doubt, would be ecstatic to read this review as she loves a love/hate attitude towards her writing.

All in all, I give her immense credit for increasing her writing style, but she has certainly gone far downhill in her content and subject matter. Glorifiying and making "poetry" out of cannabalistic torture set in the homosexual genre is not where she belongs, but obviously where she wants to go. Say goodbye to many of your fans Poppy, for even they cannot go down this path with you.

Rating:
Summary: Miss Brite, back away SLOWLY from the keyboard.
Review: Poppy Z. Brite (her real name? who cares?) has been lauded by an ever-expanding fan base that includes such authors as Clive Barker, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Cooper, and Dan Simmons. The difference between the glowing praise heaped on her books, and the lumpish quality of the books themselves, is shocking. Brite is an abominably pretentious and insufferable fiction writer -- but this book, and her book on Courtney Love, only confirm the worst suspicions about her as a writer in general.

Brite sees her characters as pawns to be shoved around and devoured, not characters to be explored. They get sucked into things they don't understand, don't do very much about it except exchange lame bon mots, and then get destroyed. End of novel. There is nothing horrifying, disturbing, insightful or even really very entertaining about her fiction: it's all just a single note that she plucks over and over again in the same "gritty" threnody.

This book is a turn-off in the worst possible way: it's by an author who thinks they know what's gonna scare us, when in fact they really don't have much going through their heads at all. But Brite, like the trendy and overrated peers that throng around her, has a built-in audience for many years to come regardless.

Rating:
Summary: Poppy Pleases
Review: EXQUISITE CORPSE is exquisitely wonderful--the only book I've ever read that made me feel like taking a shower after finishing it. It's thoroughly repulsive, disgusting, and horrendous--and I am completely in love with it. Brett Easton Ellis and his highly-touted AMERICAN PSYCHO are candyass mental babyfood compared with the enormous achivement Poppy Brite presents here. Ditch your Ellis collection (and all of your Steve King, Dean Koontz, and Pete Straub piles of compost, while you're at it), and sink your teeth into the sweet meat of EXQUISITE CORPSE.

Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment!
Review: Overwritten, overpraised. Why this has received so much praise from people who consider themselves intelligent is a mystery. Do any horror readers go to college anymore?

Rating:
Summary: Exquisitely Delicious!!!
Review: Poppy Z. Brite is an incredible author, that takes you into the minds of our society's most deviate, mysterious, and dangerous people. Once you pick up "Exquisite Corpse", or any of her books, you'll never want to put them down....You want not only to read her work, but be in it. She takes you into a wonderful world of dark secrets, where death becomes a beautiful angel.

Rating:
Summary: Brite weaves a dark, lucious and very readable web.
Review: As always, I find reading Brite's work to be entertaining and seductive. While some of the imagery in "Exquisite Corpse" borders on the repulsive, the running theme of desire that must be gratified at any cost leads one to wonder, if one had a perverse obsession, what lengths would one go to satiate it? I love how Brite makes monsters into understandable human beings. Although some parts of the book get down-right gross and it is clearly not the sort of thing people with weak stomachs should read, I enjoyed it immensely. People who enjoy her other books, like Wormwood and Drawing Blood, should like this one as well.

Rating:
Summary: A dark, beautiful tapestry of words permenantly etched..
Review: A dark beautiful tapestry of words permenantly etched into the black tapestry of the soul. This is how I view my most recent Poppy Z. Brite aquisition. Her dark prose is never anything short of dark erotic perfection...as it should be. A beautiful book...surpassed by some of her other works but an incredible piece just the same..reader be prepared to lose yourself...and your soul to the elegant Poppy Z. Brite.