Anne Rice

I have a tendency to listen to books on cassette tape. My van has the magical ability to play them and sometimes on my long  drives around the state I get reeeeeeally tired of the top 40 and classic rock, so it makes for a nice change of pace. Sometimes I find really good ones at yard sales this time, not so much.  

The Vampire Armand was the tape and honestly, if it had been in written form I would have given up on it in the first couple chapters. The story focuses on this Armand fellow. Who, in the beginning of his life, was horribly abused by humanity. He then  falls in love with his Vampire lover/master and then ages later turning into a vampire. When the story finally starts to get interesting the narrator sort of skips over it leaving behind all of the characters you just got to know and dumping you into another story 300 years later. The two stories are tied together by Armand's love of his mortal friends and the sudden powerful reappearance of Christ in his life. And then the story meanders for a little while, and just as you get interested in the new set of characters--- it ends.

I was left wondering what the whole point of the story was. Love? God? It kind of felt like a thinly veiled born again christian sort of thing. An innocent monk-boy tempted into the sexy world of the night, turns into a blood thirsty killer and then years later Christ is tossed back in his life and leads him to love and peace once again. Ok, Not my cup of tea. Do I regret listen to it? No, but I don't think I'm going to listen to it again.