Rating: 
Summary: Ick
Review: I would not recommend this book to anyone over the age of 15. I perhaps would have identified with it during the angst-filled days of my early teen years when I was fixated on being different and not feeling like I belonged anywhere. As an adult I find the pervasive sense of angst and boredom in the writing repetitive and annoying. Some of the prose in this book is rather nice - particularly some of the description of scenery. However, the characters are just BAD. Their motivations are either not clearly defined or are very one-dimensional. Brite spends a lot more time drawing out their physical characteristics (gaunt bodies, unnaturally dyed hair, dark eyeliner, and so on) and the world that they live in (constant goth cultural references) than she does actually developing character. I couldn't care enough about any of the characters to really get interested in the plot. If you are in the mood for some really light teenage trash, give it a try, but don't feel guilty if you sell it to a used book store after reading half.
Rating: 
Summary: The poppy is also a flower
Review: Some people read by genre, some for subject, some for style, others yet, for the author's voice. Few authors ever master all. Fewer still, can maintain that mastery. Brite has. Better safe than sorry, appears to have never been a motivating factor. A fact that for many has proven most gratifying. Granted, she lacks the commercial homogenization and pasturization of most bestselling scribes, but for those not in the market for a Mac-novel, I recommend you add her to your menu. Begin with "Lost Souls" as an appetizer. I did, and have consumed all of the author's work I have been able to locate. Bon appetit.
Rating:
Summary: Praise its holy name!
Review: "Lost Souls" is the book that spoiled me. After reading it, I didn't think I would ever again find a story so well-imagined, so beautifully crafted. In this tale of vampires, it would've been so easy to scrawl out a hackneyed "bite me, drain me, toss my body in the gutter" plot, but Poppy and her muse must have screamed "No way!" The narrative is dripping with sensory information -- sights, sounds, smells, everything Poppy always uses to take the readers where she wants them to go. The characters aren't lifelike, they're LARGER than life. They drag you alongside them and make you sympathize with them, love them, hate them, feel their own loves and their own hates. Steve's is an earthy, often ill-humored presence. His bandmate Ghost is enigmatic and beautiful in his eccentricities. The vampiric trio of Molochai, Twig and Zillah are a collective dark force, and every time they enter a scene you can't help but to murmur "uh-oh." This story is tightly woven. Everything's there on the page because it needs to be. There is nothing overdone, and no apologies made. Poppy has a flair for tailoring her signature violence and male homoeroticism into her backdrops, turning out a world that's so surreal, yet smacks of normalcy. That flair is no less evident in "Lost Souls." I read a variety of fiction, and I have yet to encounter anything that even approaches the soul-stirring caliber of this book in ANY genre. I was let down at the end, not because it was a bad story, but because it was an AMAZING story, and it was over. I've read some decent books since I finished "Lost Souls," but none have been as worthy of adoration.
Rating: 
Summary: Sexy, Gothic, Enthralling
Review: Lost Souls is one of the best mordern vampire book I have read. The story is original, different and one-of-kind. Brite created a new breed of vampires, creatures that can walk in the sun, creatures without real fangs, creatures who are exquisitely beautiful and strange all at once. These aren't the lyrical vampires one would find in an Anne Rice book; these are tormented souls who often act out of pure hatred and lust. Brite has constructed a horror novel that is at once sexy, scary, graphic and disturbing. There are many great memorable moments in this novel, such as when one of the book's main character - a young boy named Nohting who has just learned that he is in fact a vampire - kills a friend of his because he is thirsting blood. And the book's finale is all at once engaging, thrilling and very sad. Brite has also created two very amazing characters; Ghost is a young man who can read thoughts and who has mystical powers. And Nothing, the young boy with a tortured soul who longs for something better, who longs to be loved, is highly remarkable. This gothic horror novel is sexy and scary, beautiful and ugly. It blends horror, mysticism, magic and lust in a very balanced way. You will find yourself unable to put the book down, and unwilling to let the characters go once you are done reading.
Rating:
Summary: Best vampire novel ever written...in my opinion
Review: Poppy Z. Brite has written, what I believe, the definitive vampire novel of the last half of the 20th century. I personally think that it is better than Dracula. The way she writes, you feel like you could reach out and touch the characters, like you know them. When I finished reading the book, I felt really bad because I know that I'll never be able to meet the people that she writes about.
Rating: 
Summary: Unique, well-written, but...
Review: As a fan of Storm Constantine and other writers in this vein (pun not intended), I was recommended to PZB's works multiple times. I finally decided to start with the first-written, although others warned me that it was not her best. And it was definitely interesting. This was definitely a new take on the vampire renaissance heralded by Anne Rice and others. These vamps are dark but not romantically so, decadent but not admirably so, and brutally cruel. I was wowed by the writing style, which was lush (not overly so) and yet very engaging; the uniqueness of the vampires, who truly are a different species (with their own subspecies); the blatant inclusion of homoerotic material that other writers often only touch upon glancingly, if at all (and which is very satisfyingly fulfilled here). The problem? I hate the characters. Call me jaded, or maybe just too old to understand. Nothing was very much a nothing, to me. I couldn't get into his teenaged angst---which, granted, had some real basis in his being "different". But some of his angst had to do with things like, "My parents want me to clean my room because I haven't bathed in days and it reeks." Or, "Nobody understands me except the singer on this underground tape I got from my friends, so I'm going to run away from home to find him." It's really hard for me to find sympathy with those kinds of laments, even though I remember feeling the same way when I was a teenager (well, I had no problem with baths). I guess it bothers me because I'm an adult, now, and this sort of pointless whining just seems stupid, not angsty. I also hated Zillah, who's a psychopath but not even a particularly interesting one---just one who seems to be blessed with a kind of bizarre magic that helps him attract weaker souls and pervert them into strangeness or stupidity. He does this to every female character in the story; one of the women, Ann, was a strong and interesting character until she has a liaison with Zillah. Then her brains and strength just seem to... vanish. The other female character meets the same fate, earlier in the novel, but she didn't really start out as a strong character (her motivations were completely unclear), so I didn't really mind in her case. She was too uninteresting for me to care about her---which is the problem for most of the characters in the story. I do like some of the characters. Christian, for example, is a none-too-subtle poke at the more romanticized, old-worldish vamps of other authors like Rice; he too falls under Zillah's spell, and is basically dragged into the more crude, brutal, modern vamp world PZB has created here. His corruption is actually interesting to watch. Ghost is fascinating---although his devotion to his uber-macho, rapist buddy Steve just leaves me cold. It's as if a subtle theme of this story is Why Smart People Do Really Dumb Things. Still, I'll definitely recommend this story, if only for its fresh and original take on vampirism. Its takes on teen angst, relationship abuse, friendship, good/evil, etc., are more common.
Rating:
Summary: A an excellent book...
Review: Poppy Z. Brite has to be one of the most intricate writers I know of. She creates such lush characters and vivid landscapes and scenarios. I feel as if I'm there. Lost Souls is one of the best vampire books I've ever read. It gave an interesting view into the lives of vampires, those who are becoming and even those who aren't either of the other two. I had only two problems with this book: The extreme homosexuality of almost every character and the lack of women characters and their portrayl. I have no problem with homosexuals, don't get me wrong. I can see two men together and it doesn't bother me in the slightest...but in this book, it just seems that every character is male, and they all have no interest for women. This is not a problem for homosexuals, bi-sexuals or open minded people. Thankfully I am the latter. It's just hard to identify with those parts when you are not gay or bi. I also like women characters and I think Mrs. Brite could write a very interesting woman character, besides someone like Ann. It seems to me that Poppy doesn't really care too much for women. True, this is only an assumption...not spreading "facts". It just seemed that she made Ann seem very dumb. She never knew what she was doing and every choice she made I wanted to slap her and lead her in a new direction. I don't know, this is just me talking, but those are the only two qualms I had with this book. Had this book had a mixture of sexuality and more colorful and powerful women characters I would have added an extra star, but, this is only my opinion. Take it or leave it.
Rating:
Summary: FANTASIC!!!
Review: This is now my favorite book!The descriptions are fantastic!Youn fell like you are really there!And characters are amazeing too.The friendship and loytality and trust between Ghost and Steve is amazeing!The things they say and do is relastic.This is a MUST READ by those who love Vampire books,and just love books period!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: This is the first book by Poppy Z. Brite I have read and I was very impressed. Her descriptions are hauntingly beautiful and articulate. I'm very hard to amuse and this was the first book I have ever come across that I couldn't put down. She didn't use the romantic image of the vampire which made the story even better. Passionate, erotic, and dark her writing lacks the conservative sugar coating that plagues todays literature.
Rating:
Summary: Agree with the other reviewers but deviate in rating
Review: I agree with the other reviews about lost innocence and teen angst and the "horrible beauty" of the vampires but I thought the books kind of played to that. There's this whole young sub-culture fixated on death, personal ruin, anarchy self-mutilation of teh physical and emotional kind and this book kind of speaks to it, I can see it being the "Bible" of some fool who lives for dark clothes, clove cigarettes, vampire drama, play multi-sexuality and a profound feeling of loss. I thought that Ghost, the psychic lead singer of Lost Souls was interesting, an interestign blend of the aware and the confessor and keeper of secrets. Agood characterization there. His friend Steve, while complex, angry, a rapist and downright terrified of all his friend Ghost represents was well drawn too. Nothing, Zillah, Twig, Christian and Mollachi were kind of too decadent, too aimlessly dark and self-destructive. I thought that the final confrontation was way too easy---I can't believe that a drunken Steve could get the drop on these old vampires who were faster and stronger. Teh book keeps churning at itself, almost eating at itself in a way between believability and creating a sense of why care? about these characters. I think there was maybe another hundred pages, some development, some more intermingling of these characters who are never quite good enough to be heroes. There's a brief moment when all of the lead characters come together halfway through and a kind of charge leaps off the page but then they disperse again. While I understood the threat of Ann, Steve's ex being pregnant with a vampire baby I never really cared because everyone was so pathetic that you kindof wonder should they even be alive. It was a nice twist though that the vampires can't pass on vampirism and that there were other kinds of vampires lurking around. Like I said before there's stuff here to be mined, that needed to be explored further---especially the finally expressed then quickly repressed homosexual relationship between Ghost and Steve. Ghost came off so asexual or above sexuality that it would have been interesting to see what a relationship would do to him. Nothing and Zillah being child and parent and lovers, finding out the truth and continuing was kind of unique but the older vampires were kind of heavily labelled the bad guys, Nothing and teh rest are caught inbetween but despise the light of being good so there's kind of no place for sympathy to fall. It's not often in a book when I know that the final battle is coming and realize that it's kind of okay with me whoever dies does---there's no one to root for. Even in experimental fiction, in plot, if not form there needs to be a clear victim. Okay, Ann got really used (which is an interesting theme concerning women---I also read Drawing Blood)---I mean really used and abused by just about everyone in the book (the irony of her one murder is a nice touch but it doesn't get the play it deserves and kind of plays as too much of an Antigone/Elektra complex). There is also an overabundance of kudzu, a Southern plant, in this and other Brite books, the mention of it, the growing of it, the smell of it, look lets get in the car---next to the kudzu, let's walk up the stairs where there's kudzu, they're outside---near the kudzu, they were having breakfast by the kudzu---I started playing a game with each chapter waiting for kudzu to arrive. It gets so mawkish at a point that I was hoping that it would be revealed that kudzu was Brite's child's name and a clever way of saying hello like Carol Burnett---see you can forgive the ear tugging when you found out it was for her grandmother and daughters, right? And for books so heavily set in the South (Cajun, Creole, Gullah, North Carolina, New Orleans, hoodoo, etc.), it's weird that there are no Black people (two peripheral characters in the books I read). What's that about? The South is a little darker than that even under a hot sun. And if it's not, then Brite shoudl address why certain kinds of people don't show up in certain sub-cultures---now that would be daring and provocative. Also the proliferation of supposed gay fantasy boy/men who all have this skinny, taunt bodies, barely out of puberty-somewhere between boys and men grows old when two books in you realize you're in some dirty old man's porn fantasy. It reeks of pandering to a certain "marketing target audience demographic" after awhile. It would be nice to see a breadth of characters, of ages, of nationalities, of body types, of beliefs. I think Brite is a good writer, excellent in some places with description, I will read a few more books but I think that there's a point when you're playing to the sub-masses the song they want to hear knowing that the screeching will upset the above ground masses. There's dangerous writing, writing that pushes the envelope of concepts and plot to go somewhere new, then there's self-aware writing that pushes it for pushing sake. There's a difference in being a great performer and a great artist. Think Madonna versus Billie Holiday. Brite has to make up her mind which she'll grow into being. One is hailed as the creme de la creme but the other simply is and has no target group, only a feeling that touches us all. Think 'Solitude'.
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