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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
A stimulating epistolary work. Romantic and clearly has driven certain themes in entertainment even today.
adventurous
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
slow-paced
just watch the vampire diaries. atleast the vampires are hot in it.
came for the vampires, stayed for the gothic vibes. the vampires in and of themselves aren’t really the Big Bad like a lot of pop culture portrays but more as a plot device or a metaphor of the times? i mean, the female vampires were obviously commentary on victorian repression and purity culture, and a lot of the plot had me confused as to whether stoker was trying to take a feminist or anti-feminist approach. maybe he wasn’t trying to do either!! but that was definitely the lens that i read a lot of this through considering that he repeated the word voluptuous at least 6x everytime he talked about a woman vampire and had his female characters preach about the braveness and worthiness of men at least 2x each time they switched to their own pov. it’s a product of the times, though, and i actually do think it was quite enjoyable for that. classic gallantry and honestly, beautiful representations of human relationships and love, romantic or platonic. i think my favorite portion of the book was when the audience knew that dracula was the culprit behind lucy’s illness, but the main characters (save van helsing) did not. it really added to the all-encompassing nature of him that the characters described. i think that was diluted in later parts of the book but it served it’s purpose.
read 2 reviews talking about gung ho manliness and the presence of evil being noticed because people got sexy and i feel like that really does take up a lot of the book…fun, interesting read though, it was definitely a little slow at times and maybe i just wasn’t immersed enough, but this being an epistolary novel meant that sometimes i would imagine shit happening and the characters taking their time to sit down and write about it and then i got taken out of it
read 2 reviews talking about gung ho manliness and the presence of evil being noticed because people got sexy and i feel like that really does take up a lot of the book…fun, interesting read though, it was definitely a little slow at times and maybe i just wasn’t immersed enough, but this being an epistolary novel meant that sometimes i would imagine shit happening and the characters taking their time to sit down and write about it and then i got taken out of it
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
challenging
dark
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
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
The novel was very slow-paced, particularly in the middle portion. I enjoyed the first ~1/3 of the book and the last ~1/10 or so quite a bit, but it dragged a lot in the middle. The epistolary format was great in the beginning; however, once the characters met up and were in the same location for the remainder of the story, the format no longer brought anything fresh to the table and fell to the wayside. I see how this took off and became a classic and the basis for so much of the genre, but I found it to be a less interesting read than expected.
Finished just before Halloween!! Go me!!
All in all, not a terrible read. Could have done without the racism and low-key sexism. However, Mina Harker. Absolute. G! Also, R.I.P Lucy, Lucy's mom, Mr. Morris, and everyone else that died in this nutty, horror novel! Mina and Johnathan had a kid and named him after Mr. Morris and they're gonna raise him to know how bad ass his mom is, hell yeah! Happily ever after!
All in all, not a terrible read. Could have done without the racism and low-key sexism. However, Mina Harker. Absolute. G! Also, R.I.P Lucy, Lucy's mom, Mr. Morris, and everyone else that died in this nutty, horror novel! Mina and Johnathan had a kid and named him after Mr. Morris and they're gonna raise him to know how bad ass his mom is, hell yeah! Happily ever after!
dark
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced