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A review by armandnolastname
Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This was pretty good. Until it wasn't.
The premise of the book was good enough, it promised a Southern Gothic story (which I deeply love) with all the elements a reader might ask for: the mysterious family manor, big family, big legacy and secrets that have been buried over time, ghosts and spirits and complex relationships. And Blackwood Farm offers all that and makes it entertaining, until Anne Rice decided that she had to add other aspects that had nothing to do with the original premise and these new elements needed more weight in the narrative than the first ones.
It was all developing fairly well considering this is an Anne Rice book - I'm already used to the dramatics, the ridiculously unrealistic intense characters and the strange way they act with each other (to say it lightly). And she makes it work! Sometimes. She does, she is capable of constructing a weird but entertaining story, and this is why I was enjoying it until she lost the plot. I do think this story could have performed much better if it was written differently. I feel like Rice mixed up all the elements and themes that, artfully sprinkled in previous books, made her vampire narratives stand out from the rest. But this was too much.
I think it's fair to say that the Mayfairs ruin The Vampire Chronicles with their presence. Merrick wasn't that bad as she is a Mayfair that wasn't too close to the 'main line' of the family, and the book was... fine. In this one, the setting, the characters, and the storylines introduced with the ghost Rebecca, the spirit doppelgänger Goblin and their connection to the soon-to-be vampire Quinn were incredibly interesting, but it is all dismissed when the Mayfairs come into the picture. You were promised a Gothic book, and then you get an immature, exaggerated insta-romance between a human boy and a witch girl that doesn’t make sense even for a second but still Rice felt it was important enough to give it a good chunk of the book.
Suddenly, everything revolves around Quinn, Mona and her family; all that had been established up until the 50% of the book is relegated to the background. And I wonder why this is a TVC book, when the Mayfairs have more weight and presence than any vampire. Not even Lestat’s presence saves this one, as he is a mere listener until the last 10% of the book, and Quinn remains human for most of the story. The mystery and tense atmosphere are entirely broken and then forgotten when Mona Mayfair appears and the plot becomes non-existent (when it was already difficult to grasp in the first place and it is very much vague), but Quinn is given an absurd amount of pages to describe his undying, pure, mad love every two sentences for a girl he meets in the morning and plans to marry at night. I'm not going to dwell much on the fact that Mona is 15 and Quinn is 17-18 when the 'romance' starts, I don't have the energy for that and other controversial aspects like race and how the character Petronia is portrayed, I’m sure someone can articulate better arguments. It's Anne Rice, at the end of the day. Some aspects got better with time, others didn't. You do with that information what you will, but I'll never forget the main character spotting the 'love interest' at a restaurant, going to her and starting their first conversation ever by saying "I want to marry you".
How disappointed I was when I found out that such a Gothic device like Goblin, a spirit linked to the soul of a human and who slowly appears to become more corrupted, evil and demanding, almost making Quinn a Jekyll and Hyde-esque character, is completely disregarded and literally disappears from the story for a considerable part of it. There was so much potential; instead, I got almost nothing.
This rant, like the book, is all over the place. I can say this was fun and it wasn't a dull, hard chore to read it (like Memnoch) but, as I kept reading, it became more stupid, more pointless, more annoying. At the end, it was too long and flowery dense when it wasn’t telling or conveying anything that was that serious.
The premise of the book was good enough, it promised a Southern Gothic story (which I deeply love) with all the elements a reader might ask for: the mysterious family manor, big family, big legacy and secrets that have been buried over time, ghosts and spirits and complex relationships. And Blackwood Farm offers all that and makes it entertaining, until Anne Rice decided that she had to add other aspects that had nothing to do with the original premise and these new elements needed more weight in the narrative than the first ones.
It was all developing fairly well considering this is an Anne Rice book - I'm already used to the dramatics, the ridiculously unrealistic intense characters and the strange way they act with each other (to say it lightly). And she makes it work! Sometimes. She does, she is capable of constructing a weird but entertaining story, and this is why I was enjoying it until she lost the plot. I do think this story could have performed much better if it was written differently. I feel like Rice mixed up all the elements and themes that, artfully sprinkled in previous books, made her vampire narratives stand out from the rest. But this was too much.
I think it's fair to say that the Mayfairs ruin The Vampire Chronicles with their presence. Merrick wasn't that bad as she is a Mayfair that wasn't too close to the 'main line' of the family, and the book was... fine. In this one, the setting, the characters, and the storylines introduced with the ghost Rebecca, the spirit doppelgänger Goblin and their connection to the soon-to-be vampire Quinn were incredibly interesting, but it is all dismissed when the Mayfairs come into the picture. You were promised a Gothic book, and then you get an immature, exaggerated insta-romance between a human boy and a witch girl that doesn’t make sense even for a second but still Rice felt it was important enough to give it a good chunk of the book.
Suddenly, everything revolves around Quinn, Mona and her family; all that had been established up until the 50% of the book is relegated to the background. And I wonder why this is a TVC book, when the Mayfairs have more weight and presence than any vampire. Not even Lestat’s presence saves this one, as he is a mere listener until the last 10% of the book, and Quinn remains human for most of the story. The mystery and tense atmosphere are entirely broken and then forgotten when Mona Mayfair appears and the plot becomes non-existent (when it was already difficult to grasp in the first place and it is very much vague), but Quinn is given an absurd amount of pages to describe his undying, pure, mad love every two sentences for a girl he meets in the morning and plans to marry at night. I'm not going to dwell much on the fact that Mona is 15 and Quinn is 17-18 when the 'romance' starts, I don't have the energy for that and other controversial aspects like race and how the character Petronia is portrayed, I’m sure someone can articulate better arguments. It's Anne Rice, at the end of the day. Some aspects got better with time, others didn't. You do with that information what you will, but I'll never forget the main character spotting the 'love interest' at a restaurant, going to her and starting their first conversation ever by saying "I want to marry you".
How disappointed I was when I found out that such a Gothic device like Goblin, a spirit linked to the soul of a human and who slowly appears to become more corrupted, evil and demanding, almost making Quinn a Jekyll and Hyde-esque character, is completely disregarded and literally disappears from the story for a considerable part of it. There was so much potential; instead, I got almost nothing.
This rant, like the book, is all over the place. I can say this was fun and it wasn't a dull, hard chore to read it (like Memnoch) but, as I kept reading, it became more stupid, more pointless, more annoying. At the end, it was too long and flowery dense when it wasn’t telling or conveying anything that was that serious.