Rating: 
Summary: Terrific Read
Review: This is the first book I've read by Poppy Z. Brite, and it definately won't be the last. It's an electrifiying book that's sure to please your horror senses.
The story is about Trevor McGee, and how his father murders his mother and little brother and himself in their house and how he goes back to visit it later (don't worry, I didn't give anything away that the book description doesn't say anyway). He meets Zach, a computer hacker, and becomes Zach's lover. He revisits his old home that his family was murdered. At times this book is startingly, and overall really good. Check it out if you're into horror, or even if you're not.
Rating:
Summary: Hardcore Gore/Horror Masterpiece
Review: I was a fan of her great work, "Lost Souls", so I figured I had nothing to lose when I chose to read "Drawing Blood". Boy, was I right. This truly is an amazing and original piece of work. Poppy manages to create spooky settings set in her haunted southern towns where the terror is more psychological than physical. As the story goes, a famed comic book artist murders his family (including his three year old youngest son), commits suicide by hanging himself in the bathroom, but oddly enough leaves his oldest child alive. Years later, plagued by memories of his broken past and dead family, the surviving McGee child returns to his roots, takes a lover, and together they face the terrible past that he has left behind. It's violent, disturbing, raw, and not at all for the squeamish. Definitely a 5 star novel.
Rating:
Summary: Sensual, alluring and captivating..
Review: A combination of Stephen King and Anne Rice at their best could not have produced a better material than Drawing Blood.
I was hooked from the first page and was just imprisoned by the story of our tormented lovers, Zach and Trev. The side characters are also well developed though I could hardly refrain myself from skipping their little parts just to get back to the lovers and their haunting house. I have never enjoyed a horror more. Thank you Miss Brite for a magnificent read.
Rating: 
Summary: My first book by Brite
Review: This was the first book I read by Poppy and while I wa simpressed with the angst the whole twinks having sex and their tight, sinuous, slightly androgynous forms wore on after awhile. I think that there's a pandering going on. A pandering of sexuality by women of a certain ilk who think this is merely all there is to it. These effete, creative, deeply tortured pretty boys. It actually makes me wonder if the women who write like this have been virulently attacked by teh thoughtforms of such work as Cosmopolitan because it is a direct transfer of such thinking. If you're tired of hearing about waif-esque qomen who are tortured and live lives where love is something they dimly consider inbetween being beautiful and blessed, then this book rocks for you. It also comes off as more pedophiliac soft porn than erotica. I imagine a guy in his late thirties or forties buying these books and getting the latest copy of Britney Spears videos and LIE, the DVD to really sugar his jellybeans.Writing was atmospheric, the plot though---destroyed by the constant necessity to deride itself into kudzu, kudzu, kudzu, which ultimately is pablum. Again I believe she has potential, when she stops writing tripe and goes for a literature over this gothic--going nowhere foolishness, she may explode as a writer of value. I see why she credits drinking to her writing and how sobriety may mean a dry spell. A look at some of this work as a whole sober could stop a writer writing for awhile.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read in a long time
Review: I was bored and in a local bookstore when I stumbled across Drawing Blood. I read the back and bought it, thinking it would be another amusing... horror book. Boy, was I wrong. I haven't read a book this good since Anne Rice wrote The Queen of the Damned. The way Brite develops each character into their own roles in awesome, and the way she meshes each one into a perfect puzzle of mystery, love, and horror is absolutely unbelieveable. I was so upset when it was done because I never wanted it to end. Her style is great, so good infact, that I felt as if I was watching a movie instead of reading a book. The plot is amazing, so is everything else in the book. I strongly recommend this to anyone, regardless of what genre you like to read, this book is truly amazing.
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre
Review: When I first read this book some time back I found it original, chilling and a tight piece of work. Coming back to it now I can't help but find it rather tedious and at times naive. The storyline itself isn't the problem, it is the way Brite narrates that makes me cringe. Obviously fans of the book, and Brite as a writer, are not going to agree with me on the next point but I find she relies on stereotypes far too much and her characters, although displaying some degree of depth, are quite two dimensional. The love scenes between Zach and Trevor are particuarly excrutiating. The narration here is juvenile and it almost seems as if she is rushing to make a point and move on to the next scene as if she is reading the text not writing it. The scenes are not well crafted and this is the feeling I got from the novel as a whole. To me it feels like a novel written by a randy teenager who has no idea how to craft a three dimensional story and has drawn from every stereotype available.
Rating:
Summary: Kind of depressing.....
Review: This is just so totally different then what I'd expected. I'd read the reviews others had written and couldn't wait to read it.
I went to the bookstore and bought the book and it turns out to be not what I'd expected from what I'd read the reviews of other Drawing Blood readers. It was a really dark fic and nearly every single fact inside was unhealthy, such as smoking, drugs, violence, etc. Personally I regretted buying this book. But well, maybe some readers who love dark fics would probably love this, so for those of you who are, go get it. When I'd finished reading this book, I had this really uncomfortable feeling in my heart and couldn't really sleep well that night. It just disturbs me.
Rating:
Summary: Drawling Blood aka Birdland
Review: Thsi book is fantastic!We get to vist Missing Mile again and met with Terry,Kinsey and Rj again!Steve and Ghost are only mentioned about three times for all you Steve and Ghost fans(I'm one myself).We get to see the story about the haunted house on Volin Road.We meet Trevor,a twenty-five year old who was the only survivor of the house,and Zach,a computer hacker from New Orleans who can't seem to love anyone.It's funny.(...)
You get so involved with the characters,I'm warning you,that when so go to the parts with the FBI going after Zach or Zach's best friend Eddy,you skip cause you don't care about them,just Trevor and Zach.
This book is really great.The only thing I had a problem was that Zach growing dreadlocks it the epilougue,when so far in the book his hair has been spikey.There is no vampires in this book,like Lost Souls.Nothing about Christian and co.But read it,it's fantastic,great,marvalous,purple proze as Poppy Z. Brite puts it!
Rating:
Summary: A very long book.
Review: I started this book in early October. I was in the mood for a good dose of horror and the reviewer at my local bookstore said it was so frightening and evil she had to throw it across the room to get away from it. Now that sounds like quite a read! The reality wasn't quite so exciting and here I am a month later. It soon became very long and drawn out with minimal horror. I was compelled to put the book down, but hardly to throw it across the room for it's evil attributes. Brite is an interesting writer and I might even give her a try again but this book just seemed to take forever to get any place. Her characters were intense and appealing. The story line was tedious but unusual. I would give this book a 2.5 on a good day. Kelsana 11/14/01
Rating: 
Summary: Bravo Poppy
Review: Poppy's material, I think, has really good imagery qualities. Her situations are usually very easy to visualize. That's one of her best traits in my opinion. She does, at times, seem very immature, but it's not so bad that it gets annoying. In Drawing Blood she seems to embellish on her fetish of gay sex even more then she did in Lost Souls. It gets a bit redundant, but it's tolerable. I thought at first that this book would have something to do with vampires, but it turned out to be all murder, hacking, and homosexuality. It's not such a bad book, and again like I said the situations are very visual. I think if I were to try I could recall every sequence of the book correctly, I could. I liked Lost Souls a bit more then Drawing Blood, but there was some competition. I like her work enough to go on and read Exquisite Corpse, and I am looking forward to it.
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