A dark fairytale of epic proportions ( )

This book was so different and strange; I loved it. ( )

Brite's writing and characters immediately sucked me in, and I absolutely loved the way art saturated the book's pages--drawing and music were both a constant source of atmosphere and brought home Brite's thematic intentions in a way that made the book resonate all the more. Tying together art, powerful relationships and friendships, and haunting violence, the book is a novel worth every horror-lover's mind, so far as I'm concerned. It escalates further and further until the climax of the book brings everything together in brilliant fashion, and I only wish there were more Brite books to be read. I'll come back to this one and recommend it over and over again, I'm sure. ( )

This one wasn't bad, but to tell the truth, had I read this prior to [book:Lost Souls|452244], I likely would not have read LS.

This one, to me, comes across as a pale imitation of its much richer older brother. Both follow a young man who has changed his name and is looking to find himself and where his place is in a strange world. Both young men are sexually ambiguous, both were essentially born in Missing Mile, then taken away and must return to find themselves.

Once there, they find both someone to nurture them, and another who is skilled at what he does that helps that renamed person find themselves.

So, essentially the plot is the same, but this time, Brite swapped out the vampires and that culture for a slightly haunted house and a computer hacker.

This is really not a horror novel. It's more of a Finding Yourself novel that occasionally bumps up against some horror tropes. I found the whole mushroom trip/dream sequence toward the end actually tedious. And for me, though Brite showed an undeniable attraction between the two main characters, Zach and Trevor, at no point did she really prove to me why each fell in love so quickly and so permanently with each other. It was more of a they love each other because I'm the author and I say so theme. It never gelled for me.

Aside from that, Brite did stuff the book with some fun stuff, including underground indie comics, the late 80s/early 90s music scene, early 90s computer hacking culture, and some smaller glimpses into worlds we normally don't see much of. Unfortunately, it was mostly that stuff that kept me reading, not the actual story.

To be honest, I felt Zachary was too willing to continue to be beaten down, and Trevor was mostly just annoyingly naive and violent.

It would have been interesting to see, had Brite continued to write in this vein, what we'd be reading now, though. Could have been cool, if they had gotten over the whole "lost young man" trope. ( )

It has been a long time since I read this novel, but I recall being quite amazed by the absorbing moodiness, evocative prose, and compelling themes. My impression of Brite's writing, especially on the subject of vampires, is that she is everything that Anne Rice fans think of Rice -- but where Rice falls short of the legend, Brite exceeds all expectations.

Some of Brite's preoccupations in her writing (which somewhat mirror Rice's, but Brite is less coy about it) get to be a bit much for my tastes after a couple of books (it began to feel like reading the same book), and as such I stopped reading her works some years ago, but there's no denying that as an author she has an impressive talent and formidable skill in her craft.

You might notice this review is almost identical to my review of Lost Souls. Yeah, I know. I read them both at the same time, and my memory of each has faded about the same amount. ( )