General spoilers ahead.

Did you need a story where Lestat tries and fails to immolate himself in the Gobi desert, does a Freaky Friday style body swap with a random criminal, and acquires a German Shepherd named Mojo? Well you got one, and boy is it a trip.

Reading an Anne Rice novel is like visiting a warm but acutely eccentric aunt, someone who’s kind and nice to be around, but also has too much to drink at Thanksgiving, whose stories are interesting but inconsistent and have only the flimsiest relationship with reality.

Lestat is so fun, he’s such a seriously unserious person. He’ll murder one of the Golden Girls in Miami but he draws the line at animal cruelty. He has never listened to anyone else in his life, but he’s very concerned with whether or not this serial killer has the mental faculties to appreciate how pretty he is. He foolishly switches bodies with a dishonest human even though everyone he knows is like “Lestat! Don’t! That’s the worst idea!” but of course he does anyway and then hates every second of it.

The beautiful part about this character is that he’s a clown who always plays it completely straight. He’s genuine when he says he might die from having to use the bathroom as a human man. He can’t walk ten feet without falling in love with someone. Even in life and death situations he’s judging the beauty or ugliness of the furniture around him.

This book continues the odd, sometimes wacky, but always fascinating, mythos of Anne Rice’s characters. Enjoyable as ever.