Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite

 

DNF @ 49%

Quick note, Poppy Z. Brite is a trans man named Billy Martin, but his books are still marketed under the Brite "brand," so I will be using the name/brand he uses to sell his books but with the correct pronouns. 

I was not expecting to dislike this book more than DRAWING BLOOD because vampires are kind of my thing. But DRAWING BLOOD had two sympathetic (if violent and seriously messed up) protagonists, who I could still root for, whereas LOST SOULS has a cast of people who seem to all be jockeying for the position of Absolute Worst.

There's Nothing, who's half-human/half-vampire, posterchild for the disaffected youth. Then there's Steve and Ghost. They're in a band. Steve's girlfriend just broke up with him because he raped her and Ghost is psychic and kind of in love with Steve (and possibly vice-versa). Then there's the vampires, Molocahi, Zillah, and Twig. They feel very Lost Boys-esque, and basically drive around getting drunk and killing people.

As one does, as an immortal child of the night.

There's not really a story, just lots of road tripping and drugs and sex and violence. Which I would normally be okay with in a vampire book, except it also comes with douchebaggery and incest and self-harming and suicide and underage sex, and those are things that I do not like reading about. They're dropped so casually too, and in the case of the incest, it comes completely without warning.

Brite is not a bad writer. He has an ability to viscerally convey a scene that is AMAZING. Like, it's cinematic, and in the case of DRAWING BLOOD, it managed to bring a visual medium to life; I absolutely loved the way he talked about art and drawing and the way artists pour their souls into their work (to the extent that perhaps their art robs them of it). That level of writing was present here, too, but with such awful characters, it was like looking at the beautiful setting of a move you hate.

I will say, though, that this was an excellent snapshot of the '90s goth scene. SO much Bauhaus.

2 to 2.5 out of 5 stars