Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Carmilla

I guess I’m eating my words about not liking the writing style of classics, huh?

I loved the writing style of this book. It was atmospheric and gothic, I loved the setting of the castle and the grassy hills and the ruins of the old town. I just pictured fog over everything anytime they were outside. Now I just wanna have a picnic at old castle ruins in the fog with a pretty vampire. (Sadly that doesn’t happen in this book but it could’ve). This might be my favorite classic I’ve read so far… it’s at least tied with Dracula, but I think it tops it. It actually got pretty creepy at times.

Was also a little surprised how explicitly sapphic it was, given when it was written. I was expecting it to just be homoerotic in the way that classics sometimes are, or overtly homophobic. I think it’s safe to assume that the combination of sapphic elements and vampirism was very intentional.. automatically villainizing lesbianism by portraying it as a ‘virus’ that you can ‘catch’, something that’s evil and scary… But reading it it isn’t actually explicitly homophobic. It’s all subtext. It could easily be read through a more modern lens, removing that subtext.

My only complaints:

•The racism. It’s only in one or two scenes, but it’s pretty bad in one scene especially.

•How naive Laura was, especially at the very end. She was supposed to be 19, right? How did she not connect the dots after the general’s story??? 😆

•It ended a bit abruptly, I felt.

•And lastly, I just wish we got more pretty atmospheric descriptions of the ruins. I was waiting the whole book for them to go there and when they did we didn’t get much :/ I would’ve liked more atmospheric descriptions in general, but at least we got some.

Overall, I’m really happy I liked this! I was starting to worry that classics just weren’t for me. Hopefully there are still more out there that I’ll love.

Content Warnings

thenerdybookwitch's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

4.0

This pleasantly surprised me! I was expecting it to treat Carmilla and Laura’s relationship negatively but it’s not at all. Their romantic relationship is not judged by anyone. I can see why so many Lesbian bookworms absolutely adore this book. It is a vampire classic that has set a huge standard especially in the Lesbian vampire genre. It is a very good read and I highly recommend it.

Note: This is a book from 1872 so problematic themes are still going to be present. Especially outdated terms that are Ableist today. It also has such a negative view on Suicide at the end. Just keep that in mind when reading.

Content Warnings

jojo_'s review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

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