For a moment, I couldn't understand the expression of horror on his face as he stared at me, or why he suddenly rose and came towards me and bent down and touched my face. Then I remembered. My sun-darkened skin.
"What have you done?" he whispered. He knelt down and looked up at me, resting his hand lightly on my shoulder. Lovely intimacy, but I wasn't going to admit it. I remained composed in the chair.
"It's nothing," I said, "it's finished. I went into a desert place, I wanted to see what would happen . . ."
"You wanted to see what would happen?" He stood up, took a step back, and glared at me. "You meant to destroy yourself, didn't you?"
"Not really," I said. "I lay in the light for a full day. The second morning, somehow or other I must have dug down into the sand."
Suicidal? Nah... I was just curious what it would be like to be on fire. NBD. 🙈
I finally read Tale of the Body Thief, my long-ass thoughts under the cut (spoilers for the whole book of course):
Other than Pandora (and you'll have to excuse my weird reading order but after QotD I had to read TVA, and then I had to read B&G to get Marius' perspective and then it just made sense to read Pandora while that was fresh in my mind(!!)) this is the first new to me read in the series since I started my re-read - I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, which is also new because the previous three books I read are basically THE books for those characters, which is a lot of expectation and does lead to disappointment when certain things aren't covered, whereas I was putting a lot less pressure on this one, it's just more Lestat shenanigans!
It was interesting to see that Anne is also kind of managing expectations in Lestat's in-character intro chapter when she kind of warns the reader that this isn't going to be an epic, millennia-spanning, multiple POV tale like Queen of the Damned was - I guess she had her concerns about how this one would be received in comparison! Speaking of the intro I really liked it, it was fun (Lestat intros usually are), very silly and meta with Lestat exorcising some writerly angst as he witheringly lists out a bunch of famous banger first lines and lets the critics know that the "sensual", "humid" style is here to stay. Other than this fun meta stuff it's pretty clear in the intro that Lestat is NOT DOING OK, he's in a dusty period, not really taking care of himself or spending time around any other vamps apart from Louis (who occasionally deigns to leave his rundown shack to watch his TV). It's not surprising after everything that went down with Akasha that he's not doing well (and I know I just said I wasn't putting a lot of expectations on this book but wow, it is really frustrating that he's sparse with the details of what went down at Night Island, although this does fit with his overall character journey in this book, he's just desperately trying to avoid dealing with his feelings about everything that went down by any means possible for most of it). I do wonder how this was received at the time, I can imagine a lot of fans being frustrated that the Night Island coven era just gets skipped here as there's so much promise for various character interactions and shenanigans that's just left to the imagination, I'm sure that people must have built up some expectations between QotD and this book.
Anyway, as for the story itself, I really enjoyed it! Lestat's time as a mortal is packed with so many darkly humorous moments and I just feel like Anne was having a lot of fun venting the frustrations of existing in a mortal body through this character who's become alienated from the inconveniences and humiliations of that particular reality over the past couple of hundred years. Lestat as a mortal is really pathetic, he's scared of everything, he's a whiny disaster and it just goes to show how much he's gotten used to living life with the cheat codes on as a vampire. He was chosen for this life by Magnus for his courage and now he's afraid of taking a shit.
Lestat is looking for an escape in this book from an existence he's come to find intolerable, he's suicidal at the start of this tale, attempting to end himself in the sun of the Gobi desert, then crawling back to David's English country manor to lick his wounds when that fails. A few days after recovering from that he's desperately pursuing the perceived opportunity that Raglan James, the Body Thief, presents him with - a holiday in a mortal body - while willfully ignoring all the red flags and alarm bells about how untrustworthy this guy is. He's reeeally in a bad place, desperate! Obviously Raglan has no intention of giving him his super vampire body back after the switch so finding himself stuck in a mortal body he's given the opportunity to make the choice that was taken from him by Magnus: this time he chooses a vampiric existence over mortality of his own free will, easily. Kind of a huge character moment! Going forward he has to face that he chose this over a chance for 'salvation' with Gretchen (a missionary nun/nurse he has a short love affair with after she nurses him back to health from the second sickness he suffers in his short time as a mortal due to neglecting his body).
Although most of the QotD cast are conspicuously absent (I'm most curious about how come Armand wasn't all up in his business as usual!) there are quite few good Louis/Lestat interactions that really add a lot to their relationship now that they're reconciled after the events of QotD. They're very slowly coming terms with their love for one another! The other major characters in this book, apart from Raglan, the body thief himself, are David, Gretchen and ofc Mojo. Along with Lestat we learn a lot about David in this one, about his youth prior to joining the Talamasca as a big game hunter turned Brazilian witchcraft adept. David turns out to be a pretty interesting character, he seems confident and wise, yet he's naive and too trusting where Lestat's concerned. His story fits in very well with the themes of the hunter becoming the hunted in this book. Gretchen's character symbolizes the choice Lestat has to make about living out a natural (and good and self-sacrificing) life in this mortal body he finds himself stuck in or getting his supernatural (but evil, petty and entirely self-serving) life back. She's another one of Anne's tortured creative genius characters, having given up a potentially very successful career as a pianist in what she believes was a bargain with God to save her mother's life. Except she's not actually all that tortured by the choice! Very interesting parallel with Nicki there (and she has a looot in common with Sybelle too, way past the point of coincidence). Mojo is a perfect addition to the cast, 10/10 no notes, goodest boy. His relationship with Lestat is the greatest love story told in this book!
Overall I found this to be a great read, the plot keeps you guessing and moves along at a good pace, we get a great insight into how Lestat's (not) coping after the events of QotD, some nice Loustat content (not a major ship for me but I vaguely want those crazy kids to figure it out)! The best part of it is really the dark and gross humor of Lestat having an absolute mental breakdown over basic human bodily functions and limitations. IDK why it took me so long to read this one!
Anne is having so much fun putting Lestat through it in TotBT I can't take it lol.
He's cold! His dick feels weird! It smells weird! Everything smells weird! He doesn't know how to piss! He hates the smell of cheese (revoke his French card!) 😂
OK, so by coincidence I read chapter 8 of TotBT (the one where Lestat and Raglan finally talk about the deal) the same day I finally got around to watching the first two episodes of Baby Reindeer and I was struck by the parallels between Donny and Lestat: two people ignoring/downplaying the flashing neon warning signs and burying their heads in the sand about how dangerous the person in front of them clearly is because they're offering them something they desperately want.
Donny finally googling Martha was so similar to David listing off Raglan's rap sheet it's spooky.
He was powerful and warm in my arms, a juicy capon, chest heaving against me, the smell of his blood flooding my brain. I heard it pulsing through ventricles and valves and painfully constricted vessels. I licked at it in the tender red flesh beneath his eyes.
Lestat licking his victim's puffy eye bags in Tale of the Body Thief.
