Reviews with content warning for Terminal illness - Dracula

Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Dracula by Bram Stoker

23 reviews

tifftastic87's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.0

Obviously a classic, but very hard to get through. The writing in journal style is intriguing and adds to the mystery. Its very much a product of it's time and that made it hard to get immersed.

The characters however, have much more depth than I expected and it has made me question the later interpretation of some characters. If you are a horror fan and haven't read this one, I recommend putting it on your list just to understand some of the beginnings of our supernatural tales.

I do want to add that for the times Mina seems to be a particularly strong female character. The way she is described by the men is annoying "fair but having the brain of a man" but I understand that for the time that was likely a huge praise. It is her and Van Helsing that put it all together, find all the pieces and track down Dracula. Without her the men would have been lost and that is proved in a major plot point when they try to lock her away for her safety.

Content Warnings

fjordpingvin's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-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

Content Warnings

emmaward55's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

average person eats 3 flies a year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 flies per year. Flies Renfield, who lives in an asylum & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

Okay now that that's out of my system, I have to confess, I read this book is a rather unorthodox fashion, as part of the Dracula Daily emails, whereby the letters in the book are emailed out to readers on the corresponding dates. It's a fun idea for an epistolary novel and I found that it suited the format well. However, did I manage to keep up with those emails? Heck no! In fact, I only managed to finish it now, a month after the book has ended, because I started copying the emails into a text-to-speech bot and listening to months at a time.

The above being said, I really enjoyed my first experience with Dracula! I especially loved the characters of Mina and Van Helsing, and Jonathan "wifeguy" Harker gets a mention too. Although the book some times suffered for it's period typical Christianity and sexism, it was refreshing how Stoker broke free of that at times and allowed Mina to be more than just the wife in jeopardy. Like every man in this book, I too would give my life for Mina Harker at the drop of a hat.

In term of the ending, it did feel somewhat anti-climatic. I understand that an outright fight between Dracula and the party would have ended in Dracula's survival, but I was expecting more than just a quick brawl with a group of unnamed (and unimportant) men and them stabbing the Count as he slept.

Content Warnings