Lost Souls
by Poppy Z. Brite
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Book Reviews of Lost Souls
Book Review: ....my best friend at 4:00am....
Summary: 5 Stars
First off, I'd like to say that whoever wrote the Kirkus review on this book should be flogged mercilessly and fired for doing their job so poorly. The review has the flavor of a kid doing a book report on a book they hardly bothered to read, and I feel sorry for any one who actually thinks this is what Lost Souls is all about. Just as an example, any die hard LS fan knows that only one rape occurred in the whole novel, the one he/she DIDN'T mention. That's what Kirkus gets for having a rectally clogged individual review a very erotically inclined book. Oh, well. This book is not for those faint of heart, or anyone who has the misfortune of being homophobic.I bought my first copy of this book when I turned the ripe age of thirteen, (I say my first copy because it was stolen by an overzealous ex who said it smelled of my essence, and I had to buy a new one. Go figure.) and I was looking for the caped, cross-fearing, reluctant teeny-bopper vampire I was so used to, and ne! edless to say, I didn't find it here. At first it angered me, this carnal turn she took my supernatural hero of the night down, taking away the reluctance, the mystique, and replacing it with sharpened teeth, Ziggy Stardust, and more drugs than you can imagine, but then I found myself unable to put the book down. I followed the path her ideas took me down, and I fell in love with them all. Steve and Ghost are like dear friends, who I can find cruising down a deserted road in the T-bird any time I want. (Reading "Angels" in Poppy's Wormwood almost brought me to tears, revisiting my two old friends in a different time of their lives.) And although Ann doesn't truly come in until Chapter 12, she tugs at my heart every appearance she makes. Her last thoughts are heavily dog-eared and tear-stained. Then there's Nothing, a perfect combination of his tragic child-mother Jessy and his sleek, murderous father Zillah, the original lost soul. The poor boy, who's simple, easy ch! arm and wide-eyed spoiled innocence rips your heart open an! d makes it want to bleed over his lips. Poppy Brite brought these characters to life in such a vivid and lush way, they turned my ideas around and became my friends when I thought I was alone, something everyone needs sometimes. I was one of the children in black, with too many razors onhand, too much eyeliner on, and too many Camel cigarettes, and this book was my bestfriend. I recommend this book to anyone, no matter what you're looking for. I got through that phase, and I came out of it just fine, but no matter what, Lost Souls is what I turn to at 4:00am.Book Review: These Are Definitly Not Your Typical Vampires
Summary: 5 Stars
Mardi Gras draws all manner of peculiar characters into the city of New Orleans but perhaps none so strange as Zillah, Twig and Molachi. Wild Mardi Gras fun naturally draws these creatures of darkness, who live their lives in constant a state of drunken celebration and sensual pleasure. As the festival draws to a close the revelers leave in their wake only a young girl, impregnated with the seed of the alluring Zillah, as they disappear into the night. Fifteen years later the child, Nothing, lives with his adoptive parents feeling, as many wayward teens do, that he is out of place in the world. Nothing's, however, is more than the restless fancy of an adolescent boy. As he sets out on his own to discover his true family dark desires begin to awaken within him. Though his search begins as an innocent journey to meet the members of his favorite band, Lost Souls, his expedition soon takes a different turn. Blood calls to blood and soon Nothing must discover the true secret of his birth.
In Lost Souls, as well as her other novels and numerous short stories, Poppy Z. Brite writes without pulling any punches; she is unafraid of putting down the dirty details. Though many readers may find her story and writing style morbid or disturbing, Lost Souls is a treasure for those who appreciate the gothic/horror genre. She does not necessarily write gory scenes of gut wrenching proportions or highly erotic passions, though both are certainly present in Lost Souls. Instead Brite's disconcerting plot is born of the gritty film laid over her prose. Brite has a style that digs not only into the glamorous side of human existence but less attractive even ugly side that so many people choose to ignore. Drawing on a realistic and delightfully intriguing cast of characters including the beautiful mild mannered psychic, Ghost, and his tough outspoken best friend, Steve, Poppy Z. Brite spins a web of dark fantasy to ensnare the minds of those willing to step into her shadowy world of lost souls.
P.S. Now that I'm done trying to sound professional, this is my favorite book! I highly recommend it to anyone with an open mind and a penchant for dark fantasy! Read it; I don't think you'll be disappointed!
Book Review: IT grows dated the older I get...
Summary: 3 Stars
Anyone who knows me knows I blame a good amount of adolescent human behavior on hormones, plain and simple. not only does half this book not make metaphysical sense to me any longer (as in "why did I take this-or-that line to heart?" so much of it isn't even remotely..interesting anymore. I guess its okay if you're "like, 13 or something", self-absorbed, trying as hard as you can to look jaded, despite doing your darnedest to AVOID actually experiencing anything of any depth. And thats what this book is full of. There are only a few interesting characters represented, and those i feel aren't really from poppy's imagination, or from people she has experienced. They're of such spirit and incorporeal somethingness, almost ethereal beings that I'm sure she would be proud to say are "hers", from her little mind, petty human experiences and insights. But I honestly think they escape her. the book also takes, in retrospect, pointless and self-indulgent romps through just plain mean-spirited violence an cruelty that say nothing of the characters, the story, the narrative. it says alot about the mob of spooky-ooky kids who personify violence, death, lust, etc, to make sure they don't get too close to life, too touched by the experience. the more other people die, the less we have to, and more importantly, the more we just READ or watch people dying, the less we have to accept the REALITY of it all (I know some military goth will call me on that one). The more we iconify the cruel, the viscious and inhuman, the less we feel like we can be victimized by it, ESPECIALLY the preponderance of strapping young sexually ambiguous men that have always been the very epitome of Fascism; there they are, standing bemussed, mostly in black, cultured "devil- may-care", at the cusp of adulthood and responsibility, Peter Pan's with cocks of steel, only one female presence of note, whose pregancy results in her death. Hense the digression from the various "vampires" from over the centuries, to the insurmountable, valiant, existentialist silly nancy's of today, Lestat and louis, Zillah, et al.Book Review: Starts out great, but grows tiring...
Summary: 3 Stars
I love vampire stories! I WAS also one of the "goth" crowd in high school...many yrs ago, before it was labeled such. So when I stumbled upon this book and started reading, I couldn't believe I had somehow missed it when it came out over 10 yrs ago! I was instantly hooked. I consider myself to be an open-minded individual, so the gay tendencies of the characters did not bother me. I also liked her twist on vampires as being of another race altogether...However, after reading about two-thirds through, I had grown tired of the vampire life-style that Ms. Brite created. It is extremely dark and depressing.
After being a long-time fan of the vampire world and reading and fantasizing about how "cool" it would be to "be" one, Ms. Brite's story changed all that. I realized that whereas other tellings of vampire stories have the reader feeling as if they would love to be one too, this story had the reverse effect...at least for me. It is a much more "realistic" telling of the horrors, sadness and loneliness that it would truly be like. She does not romanticize this world at all. She shows exactly what callous evil beings vampires truly would be if they DID exist.
I also grew tired of Ms. Brite's extreme over-use of the word, "spider". As a noun, an adjective and even a verb! Either that's talent or that's over-kill. To her credit, there were many passages that were almost poetic, they were written so well.
I'm sure if this had been around and I had read it when I was into my whole "deathie" phase 18 yrs ago, that this would have been a much better read for me.
I did finish the story and was sad to say good-bye to the character of Ghost. I would love to see a story dedicated to him. I think that would be really interesting.
I would only recommend this book to readers who only wear black on the outside and/or the inside.
For those who love vamp stories, but want lighter fare, try the Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris. Fun to read and humorous with a great heroine, Sookie Stackhouse!
Book Review: Tales of a Superhuman Gothic Teenage Vampire
Summary: 4 Stars
Lost Souls, a horror novel by Poppy Z. Brite, brings together the lost souls, children of the night, and crazy vagabond vampires in Missing Mile, North Carolina, where Ghost, an eccentric musician who sees secrets and phantoms that burden his existence, meets Nothing, a fan whose secrets are so dark, fascinating and horrifying Ghost at the same time, and Zilla, the seductive androgynous vagabond vampire who lives off blood and Chartreuse, and twisted attractions lead them to New Orleans. The strange but not brilliant plot would not have worked without the author's extremely complex characters, namely Nothing, who is a driving conflict himself, with Ghost and Zilla on either side of him, reflections of the balance between his innocence and dark vampiric nature. However, the characters were so perfectly dark that they were unrealistic, like superhuman gothic teenagers. Nothing, though lovely and complex, is a generic hybrid character produced by teenage angst and blood-drinking fantasy, characterized by black coats, clove cigarettes, altars, dried flowers, black make-up, and heavy wine. However, Poppy Z. Brite uses these objects as symbols and all other aspects of her writing to create a distinctively dark, almost tangible atmosphere. For example, New Orleans, full of death, magic, and Chartreuse, is used as a setting to reflect her vampire characters. This, combined with her thick and fluid poetic prose, is perfect for the horror genre. To describe a kiss between two characters, Brite writes, "The golden flavor on Steve's tongue, that was not Dixie beer. It was the taste of childhood summers long gone, and laced through it was the dark taste of fear" (300). This writing style is applied to her graphic descriptions that she isn't afraid to write, and balances out her writing with poetic beauty and grotesque imagery. Thus, a reader of Brite's work can not be fainthearted, and must have an appreciation for her poetic language, as well as the ability to identify with her lost souls.