Rating: 
Summary: LAME!
Review: This book is a total waste of time & money. It offered no insight on vampires. You get more info in an episode of Buffy or Angel.
Rating: 
Summary: Not accurate representation
Review: This book is interesting to read, but it is *not* an accurate representation of real vampires. It's far more representative of the "vampyre lifestyle", nightclub and "party scene", BDSM and dark fetish, and flamboyant, attention-seeking people who are only vampires in their own minds."Vampirism is not a world. It's not a lifestyle. It's not a fetishism. It's something you are born as. Drinking blood doesn't make you a Vampire, nor does acting like one and being "vampyric". -- Quote from an elist. I've had it with so-called non-fiction writings about real vampires and vampirism which do not portray an accurate representation of the life or individuals. Of course, it's the attention-seekers who are the ones who always get into these writings (as well as talk shows). I wish people would start making an effort to give an accurate account of such things. We don't need any more outsiders looking in. I'd say this book is way overrated. I would not recommend it unless you're someone who doesn't really care about learning anything real about the vampire community and just want to read something for entertainment. If you want facts, do a web search for real vampires. There are plenty of good sites with accurate information from those who KNOW what they are talking about because they are a part of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Nonfiction? Debatable.
Review: This could have been a fascinating read had Ramsland really put her money where her mouth is and gone "undercover" and/or indepth. I never believed for a minute that she was actually going to risk her safety to get the real material that surely exists. The characters are interesting but unbelievable and the outline elementary. Basically it's another fast and mindless read that I am embarrassed to have spent six bucks on.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Fiction, Not Good Journalism.
Review: Which would be more insulting to a reader's intelligence? That Ramsland's "investigative journalism" is so flimsy that she's taken in by transparently fictional vampire stories spun by a neurotic goth named "Wraith"? Or that Ramsland made the stories up herself, and for the sake of "a good scare" expects us to buy into the cardboard masquerade? Hey Katherine, if "Wraith" is real, he was playing you. A first-year journalism student would have seen through it. If you made it all up, then publish it as a novel next time so we'll know where to file it. A shame, too. Ramsland skims the surface of a fascinating cultural phenomenon. Too bad she didn't have the discipline to follow through.
Rating: 
Summary: Enlightening entertainment.
Review: While Ramsland should have spent more time editing and arranging her work (the chapters and sub-chapters are often quite non sequitur), the information contained within is top-notch. Her style is open, personal, and engaging. Her empathy for the vampyres of America is very real, but is tempered by her personal morality- thank goodness. If you have ever read "Do or Die," then you know the kind of reporting contained in "Piercing the Darkness." They may not be immortal, and they may not be able to turn into bats, but vampyres are alive and well in the world. Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in the subject. The section on the Chicago scene scared the hell out of me. One final note: the book is very nicely bound and has a delightful dust cover. Don't wait for paperback- the hardcover is well worth the extra cash.
Rating:
Summary: Wannabe Vampires, Wishful Thinking And Mental Heath
Review: Why do most of the author's subjects sound like therapists? Could it be because the author is a something of a therapist herself? Why do so many of her subjects speak as though they were reading paragraphs from textbooks on psychological disorders, myths, and sociology? Was it because the author owns a few herself? I'm not disputing the author's many anecdotes and encounters with would-be vampires. Let's assume they're ALL true, but...so what? What does it all add up to? The reality is that most of these wannabe vampires are marginal characters, day-dreaming that they are not clerks in pawn-shops, strippers living in transient hotels, bartenders serving drunks from hole-in-the-wall dives. Instead, they are powerful, sexy, immortal beings with tragic flaws. Having dated women whose fascination with this taboo "other side" led to their claiming to be vampires (at least psychic ones), I found the whole thing tedious. Most of these vampires, I feel, could just as easily claim to be reincarnated Atlantians, Martians, 30,000 year-old Native Americans, or werewolves, for all they know of vampirism and its associated history. Maybe a little humor (though not of a condescending sort) might have helped. I'm not attacking the author, I just find too much dignity given to a subculture with an unusually high percentage of delusion time-wasting dreamers.
Rating:
Summary: Another avertisement for Anne Rice
Review: With all of the references to Anne Rice in this so-called "investigation" into modern-day vampires, you would think that Anne was getting co-author credit. This book is not worth the pages it's printed on. It seems the author was much more content to see how far into this world she was wiling to go than to actually inofrm the reader as to what this world is actually about. What ever happened to "unbiased" reporting?
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