Name: Tale of the Body Thief
Rating: 3.6796875 (64 reviews)
ISBN: 9780099548126

Anne Rice

Tale of the Body Thief

Eva Korosec

** spoiler alert **
           This is the first Anne Rice book I've read and I am in love!! Her writing style is marvelous, as well as the wonderful characters she has created. Not to mention the question of mortality and religion and love ... 
This is most likely one of my favorite books of all time!

(Spoilers ahead)

What really pulled me into this novel were all the parallels to Crime and Punishment (seriously, if you liked Crime and Punishment, you’ll love this!) and especially how the novel truly subverted the entire story while giving a very clear example of the “super human” who kills without feelings of guilt (a.k.a. a vampire). And, exactly like Raskolnikov can never reach the elevated status of being a merciless killer, the vampire Lestat cannot find it in himself to become an ordinary human, he can’t abide his vampire instincts or feel guilty for them. In his journey, he realizes he can’t change, and, truly, why should he have to? He loves his powers, loves his immortality, so his only regret in the end is that he even tried out living as a human at all. 

It was just so interesting reading from the perspective of a truly morally gray character, and the conversations about immortality and morals he has with the supporting characters — firstly, with the nun Gretchen (who was such a perfect parallel to Sonya from Crime and Punishment! God, I really could write a whole essays relating these two novels! There is just so many dots to connect!!), who gives him an opportunity to reflect on his life and his crimes and to start living a truly good, human life. It was so interesting seeing him reject her in the end, I actually expected him to agree with her and return to her, but I was so pleasantly surprised when he decided to do the opposite!

Then, of course, we also have his main love interest (at least, that’s how I interpreted their relationship) in the novel, David. God. Their conversations just kept blowing my mind over and over again (I annotated the shit out of them hahah and I go back to reread them all the time!). David is definitely my favourite character in all of this, and I am pretty sure I fell in love with him through Lestat’s own rose-coloured glasses (because, fuck, get me a man who will admire me and everything I have to say the way Lestat admires David, you know? Absolute goals). The way he fights off all the offers of immortality while still admiring Lestat and vampires in general, and his own philosophical insights on morality and life are just so incredible! I’m not sure how much I liked Lestat turning him against his will in the end (not because I wanted him to get turned at all, but because I wish he came to this decision by himself rather than it being forced upon him), but the fact that he forgives him in the end in such a beautiful way — “I knew I loved you. I knew I forgave you. And I knew with every breath I took and with every new color or shape I saw before me that I wanted what you’d given me — the new vision and life, which none of can really describe! Oh, I couldn’t admit it. I had to curse you, fight you for a little while. But that’s all it was in the end — a little while.” — really set the final tone of the story for me.

Anyway. I have to stop now, because I could literally ramble about this book for a week straight 😅 in conclusion, this book really is almost 700 pages of one of the most amazing vampire stories I have ever read, with a truly unique concept executed to sheer perfection. ❤️

El Ladron De Cuerpos

Maribel González

Hace años empecé este libro y no pude con él, más allá de un par de capítulos, supongo que no era el momento. Esta vez me ha durado una semana. Tiene reflexiones muy buenas y es muy interesante lo que plantea. Además, he conocido más el personaje de David Talbot y me encanta. Lestat es muy dramas y me saca de quicio, pero no lo puede evitar. En fin, me han quedado muchas ganas de continuar la saga de la señora Rice.

jay bee

Returning to Lestat as the main character, the fourth in the Vampire Chronicles series finds Lestat impulsive and careless in the pursuit of what he wants: a serial killer in Southern Florida. Lestat is surrounded by mortals in this tale, an a new worthy counterpoint character to Lestat is introduced, Raglan James. James is a vampire hunter, and a formidable adversary for Lestat. James offers Lestat the opportunity to switch bodies temporarily with a young mortal. Against Louis' advice, Lestat accepts and discovers he hates everything about being human. He also finds that James has disappeared with Lestat's powerful vampire body. Louis refuses to help Lestat become a vampire again, and he turns to another mortal to help him trick James into switching souls, and giving up Lestat's body.

Centering on the themes of body and soul and soul migration, The Tale of the Body Thief is a novel of action.

Tale of the Body Thief

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