Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Dracula

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Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Dracula by Bram Stoker

107 reviews

asipofcozy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Finally after years of wanting to pick up and read Dracula I have finally accomplished it. And here are my takeaways from the book

Stoker has a severe fear of feminism and women straying from the ideal pure Victorian woman. Throughout Dracula we are given many examples, by the author, as to what happens to women that strays outside of purity and why men should fear it. Lucy being a prime example, when she makes the comment that if she could, she would marry all 3 of her suitors and thus because of such "evil thoughts" she was easily wooed by Dracula.
Stoker also has a fear of modernism and science and what it was doing to religion (wonder what he would think of 2023). Stoker throws in many examples as to what happens if England continues on its path of putting science first and morals/religion second. We see throughout Dracula that many of the characters cannot conceptualize something like vampires. One character, although having all the evidence, didn't believe until he was face to face with one. This is a problem, per Stoker, that if we can't believe in the unbelievable then we are opening ourselves to evil.

This was a phenomenal read and I could reread it at some point in the future. However, if you are getting into it for a "fast-pace" read it is anything but. While only 400 pages, it took me a few days to get through it. This due to the slow-pacing at times and the over-explaining. We are "told" rather than "showed" most of the plot as the entire book is told through journals, telegrams, sonographs, and news clippings.

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bmoviealien's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Easy to follow for someone who's nervous about reading older literature because of the disconnect in language. Still conveys the mood and atmosphere well!

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veeloucagraph's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

It is with grave disappointment that I arrive at the conclusion that the second half of the book was tiring, repetitive and not thrilling. The first half was clouded in mystery and horror, which I much preferred and enjoyed. Nevertheless, an important read, that I feel pleasant about finishing, especially during October, at the spookiest season of all.

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limatau's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

The beginning of this book was very suspenseful and intriguing! It kept me listening and hanging on every word. After part one the book tappers off and looses some of the suspense I really enjoyed.

Definitely a good read!

The book was written at the end of the 1800’s, so there are some deficiencies as far as gender roles are concerned. Definitely not up to snuff by 2023’s standards.

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emilywemily6's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

I can definitely see why this is a classic and how it has shaped literature and pop culture from its time period and onward. While more approachable than other books of the era, it still sometimes lost me in its phrasings and meanings. Some parts were utterly horrific and eerie while large portions of the book were very slow and repetitive. I enjoyed this cast of characters and feel that if this book was written in 2023 I would adore them even more; their faults were mostly in the gender stereotypes of the era. I liked the various perspectives of the characters and enjoyed the audiobook narration a lot! Often the perspectives felt redundant though. The ending happened way too quick after so much build up (the last 15 minutes of listening to a 15 hour audiobook) and I wish this climax was drawn out. Overall, I’m glad I’ve read it and feel educated in both vampires and classic horror, and I look forward to seeing how this book has influenced later horror.

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alex_blackveil's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

It was a heavy read for me. I mostly read one chapter per day (≈20–30 pages/day).

It is a collection of journal entries, mostly, describing the first of Jonathan Harker's encounter with the Count, the latter's “invasion” in UK, Lucy's sickness and death and the hunt for his head by Dr Van Helsing and his new friends that the Count had hurt so much.

It's written, mainly, from Jonathan Harker, Dr Steward and Mina Harker's point of view. Count Dracula isn't as present as the title makes you think, but what is present is the pain and grief he's inflicting to the main characters, as well as the traits, characteristics and weaknesses of vampirism.

Much to my surprise, the hunt was only in the much later chapters and the fight lasted only a few pages.

My favourite character was Quincey Morris… I should see the ending coming, it's always the same with the characters I like…

Masterpiece for its time.

Be warned, he Vampire race described in this book has nothing to do with pop culture vampires. It's more on the superstitious and traditional side than the today's aesthetic one.

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heatherb's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

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chalkletters's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.0

After last year’s successful Dad-goes-walking & I-go-singing holiday, this year we’re trying a Dad-goes-walking & I-go-reading weekend. I’m booked to discuss three books: Dracula, Shadowplay and The Deathless Girls as well as walk around Whitby, where much of Dracula is set. At this point, I have really no idea what the holiday itself will be like, but I’d read Draculabefore, so I decided to refresh my memory. I was hoping to read the ‘Dracula Daily’ edition, but it doesn’t come out until November.

Dracula is very much a novel of its time: the attitudes towards women and religion and people from countries other than Britain are entirely 19th-century, as are the long speeches. Some of Bram Stoker’s long passages of description work really well as scene setting for a horror novel, but others are a little tedious if you’re reading purely for enjoyment and with 21st-century eyes.

That said, it’s not completely possible to read Dracula purely as a horror novel; there are too many things that don’t really make any sense. Why are all Dracula’s victims women, when he does away with plenty of men and has Jonathan Harker at his mercy? What, exactly, does Dracula want in coming to London? Not to mention, there are some pretty huge coincidences which stretch credulity if you’re not looking at Dracula as a metaphor for something.

The essays in the Norton Critical Edition did a good job exploring the many, many different fin-de-siècle fears that Dracula could be read to represent. These are somewhat long and dry if you’re not actually studying Dracula, but still worthwhile in the long-run. (That said, the ones relating to the various cinematic and theatrical adaptations of Dracula aren’t particularly necessary as background information on the novel.)

Bram Stoker’s characters fall into two camps: vampires (and Renfield) vs non-vampires. As there’s plenty of conflict between the two groups, it doesn’t really feel as though conflict between the non-vampires is missing, but it is a little unlikely that fully fleshed-out people would agree quite so completely about everything. Nonetheless, the characters are distinct with very little chance of muddling them up with one another, which is definitely an achievement.

Overall, it was fun to read a horror novel which really felt like a horror novel, and the Norton Critical Edition has hopefully prepared me for interesting discussions on my holiday!

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moreau's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

weirdly not much actual dracula content, he himself is irrelevant as fuck. i liked mina a lot more in the book than any of the movies, also found the bits about renfield really interesting, he's definetely my favourite character. got really attached to all the characters, actually. hearing the story from all their points of view really makes you connect with them. the vampirism almost feels like a subplot, the real focus is the other characters and how they cope. i think if it hadn't been for bela lugosi, dracula wouldn't be THE vampire character. he's kind of boring. he's interesting when he's with jonathan but after that he's whatever.

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lqne's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

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