Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Lost Souls
Book Review: Blah
Summary: 1 Stars
The only people who might like this book are young teens who haven't read anything better. The characters are seemingly interesting at first, but as you read further into this book you realise that these characters are pathetic beings and being pathetic might work for other characters in other books they don't work here. There's not much of a plot, which is a blessing because the screwed up characters are enough of a headache without tossing in some overly complicated and overly boring story. Sorry Poppy, but you just seem to be an even more twisted version of Anne Rice (you've obviously drawn a lot of inspiration from her). You'd be better leaving this book alone and picking up something more worthwhile that doesn't include grotesque events just for shock value.Book Review: Brite star in the world of vampire lore
Summary: 4 Stars
Of all the vampire books I have ever read, Lost Souls is among the finer gems. The characters are brought to life by vivid descriptions in modern jargon, and the turn of events is extremely plausible (minus perhaps the vampirism).I was impressed by how quickly the books reads. Its simplicity is one of its finer points...and is perhaps what seduces the reader into wanting to learn more about Nothing, the half-human, half-vampire in search of his past--and future.
All of the characters are extremely memorable, making this a book you'll want to sit of the shelves. The rock band, Steve and Ghost, exemplify a lot of the traits that make us human. Ghost, the seer, has an implicit understanding of nature--both human and unhuman--that is uncanny.
Compared to the esteemed Anne Rice, this book will give you a different flavor to the lives of vampires and their world view. In many ways, the authors are not comparable because of Brite's focus on comtemporary times. She depicts vampires not as gods, but as a separate race without Rice's romanticism and eroticism. This does not in any way detract from Lost Souls. It puts Brite in a category of her own.
This book is a definite must for anyone interested in vampire lore. I look forward to reading other books of Brite and encourage anyone to use this book as a spring-board into her novels.
Book Review: Brite strides boldly where Anne Rice fears to tread
Summary: 5 Stars
Lost Souls, Poppy Z. Brite's first novel, may be shockingly perverse to those not already immersed in the darker waters of fiction and life, but with its lurid omnisexuality wrapped in a blood-encased poultice of horror, it stands as a mesmerizing achievement, lending ever newer blood to the world of vampirology. While some may chide Brite's vampires for being so awfully unlike the debonair charmer Count Dracula or even the grossly disfigured Nosferatu, herein actually lies the strength of the novel. In Brite's world, good and evil do not exist, and if they do, they are oftentimes quite difficult to tell apart. There is not one character in this entire novel who is even within earshot of the bells of Normality, no one whom in all truth could be called a hero in the traditional sense. This is a world encased in darkness; even the sunlight filters through halfheartedly, as if it realizes it is just fooling itself when it pretends it can wash away the darkness with its feeble rays of light. The characters are exquisite yet deeply tainted, some by blood, some by drink and drugs, and some by the shiftier shadows that like to entomb the mind of man insidiously and secretly. If nothing else, one cannot say these characters are forgettable. We first meet Christian, a centuries-old vampire running a bar in New Orleans. One Mardi Gras night, a trio of his brethren come into the bar and entrance him with their modern ways of dalliance, unrestrained pleasure-seeking, and vitality. Christian is both literally and figuratively cold and dead inside, but the vampire trio are electric and unrestrained. Twig and Molochai are almost childlike in their recklessness, but Zilla is something special. His mysterious chartreuse-enlivened eyes do all but breathe fire through their entrancingly hypnotic gazes. A young girl in the bar that night falls under Zilla's spell, and many months after Zilla and his friends have left New Orleans, a baby is born. The baby grows up in Maryland, knowing he is different from everyone else; his name is Nothing, and at fifteen he sets off on a journey of self-discovery. His first destination is Missing Mile, North Carolina, home of the underground musical group Lost Souls?, but he meets up, as if by fate, with Zilla's band of marauding vampires and finds the family he has been aching for all his life. He and Zilla share their bodies as well as their feasts of blood, and Nothing has little trouble adjusting to the life he knows he was born to lead; he is a vampire. Steve and Ghost, the members of Lost Souls?, enter the picture because of Nothing's strong identification with their music. Ghost is the most remarkable character in the novel, a young man blessed with a gift of seeing into the minds of others, both alive and dead; his gift can be a curse at times, though, because he knows the pain of everyone. Steve is his best friend, a perpetual drunk with a bad temper that caused him to lose the one girl he had ever loved. All the roads of each character meet in Missing Mile, and the events and tragedies set in motion lead the reader from there back to New Orleans, ending in a climax I found remarkably well done.
Poppy Z. Brite is something of an acquired taste. The sexuality of her characters is strikingly extreme, and Zilla's band of vampires are particularly uncaring in their choice of partners; the life essence can be found in a fluid other than blood, and these creatures of the night delight in sharing themselves with each other as they race through life on a perpetual search for kicks. Drug abuse runs rampant among everyone in these pages, and the act of rape is consigned to one of those who comes closest to being a good guy. As disturbing as the intense erotic aspect of Brite's writing may be, however, it lies at the core of her vampiric creations. Zilla and his gang have no morals, no code of honor, no feelings whatsoever; there is not a trace of immorality found among them because they are completely amoral. Brite raises the world of vampirism out of its traditional trappings, and therein lies the magic that sets Brite apart as a shockingly new, amazingly effective voice in modern horror.
Book Review: Brite's Best
Summary: 5 Stars
One of Brite's earliest books, "Lost Souls" is a chronicle of miserable and tragic youths. Steve, Ghost, Nothing, Anne, and Zillah are the main characters and every single one of them is interesting and sympathetic in their own way.
Brite's got a knack for description, a talent which served to repel me during my reading of "Exquisite Corpse." However, she has managed to awe and delight me with it here as she covers miles and towns such as New Orleans and the fictional Missing Mile. Her description is lush, imaginative and raw. You find yourself examining sex scenes with an artist's interest rather than a lewdist's. It's a great book to curl up with on a stormy evening.
Here's the main gist: Zillah and two of his buddies are three wandering vampires with a penchant for murder and booze. It's painful to try and sum up this huge book because so many interesting things occur with a bunch of characters, but I'll just have to condense this for you. Zillah ends up fathering Nothing, a lonely youth who yearns for experience and acceptance, and who goes off in search of his anonymous father. That is the underlying backbone of the tale, but there is a lot that goes on.
This is Brite's best, in my humble opinion. All of you yearning youths should pick this up and read it. I sure got some communion with Nothing out of it!
Book Review: Brutally Breathtaking
Summary: 5 Stars
What to say about the best book I've ever read, well I read this book about a year and a half ago and I haven't forgotten a graphic moment in that story since,it deeply affected me and Poppy's characterization was so personal and her settings were so vivid I felt like I was watching life in New Orleans unfold while I was hiding in a dark corner half hoping that Nothing or Christian would happen to glance my way. So far I haven't found another author who captured my attention the way Poppy has and I doubt that I ever will. Let the vampyres bite...