Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Dracula

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Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Dracula by Bram Stoker

35 reviews

too_hot_books_to_handle's review against another edition

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slow-paced

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

3.0

Dracula
Author: Bram Stoker

I've been wanted to read Dracula for ages. I'm a occasion horror reader who prefers to read scary books during the fall season and Halloween.

So this year when i was making my to be read list for this cozy season, i decided that it was finally time to read this spooky classic.

Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897. Now 125 years later Dracula still plays a huge part in the horror genre. If we think about scary creatures vampires always pop up into our minds thanks to this novel.

It can be challenging to review such a well known book.

Therefore i would just share my thoughts. I never saw the movie so i had no clue about the actual storyline.

One of the main characters named Jonathan Harker needs to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house. Previously he had no forethought about the kind of danger that awaits him during his stay in the spine-chilling castle.

Abducted by the astute Count, Jonathan need to be clever to escape the darkness.

The entire storyline is written in diary logs. Jonathan is my favorite storyteller. I found it really entertaining to read his descriptions because they were really detailed and creepy.

In my opinion, the whole storyline is slow and too long-winded. I had different expectations. The romance part was very overpowering. To me it felt more like if i was reading a romance which included some small scary elements. What i also missed was an insight in Dracula his thoughts that would have really made it more interesting for me.

Overall, I did enjoyed reading Dracula.
What books would our future generation still be reading in 125 years?

My rating:
⭐⭐⭐

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melancholymegs's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

soupply's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

1quillb's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

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

1.0

First of all, I’m very disappointed that Dracula only showed up on probably 40 pages out of the 400 in my book. But to be fair, on most of those other pages absolutely nothing happened. And second of all, that ending? Did he run out of pages and just word-vomit onto the page to meet the deadline?
So, with full and complete offence meant to Abraham “Bram” Stoker: this book sucked. Horribly.

I’m not entirely sure what happened in it, to be honest. Jonathan goes to Dracula’s castle and gets trapped there. A man called Renfield eats spiders but really wants to eat a cat. Mina sits in a churchyard with her girlfriend Lucy. Lucy gets proposed to three times by men she’d literally spoken to one time… it was just random plot point after random plot point, none of which made sense in any sort of context.
And the entire second-half of the book was devoted to… you guess it, absolutely nothing! They decide that vampires are indeed real (though it takes them some time to come to that conclusion even after they see one), and then they go to Dracula’s castle. Why? I don’t know. Dracula wasn’t even there.
Then, for about the last ten pages of the novel, they have a metaphorical snowball fight and start stabbing random Romanians. Obviously the Romanians lost, because they were exhausted from spending the last dozen hours carrying Dracula’s coffin up the mountainside because the Count was too lazy to walk. But luckily “he” dies!
Who is “he”, you may ask? Apparently, it’s Dracula, because later on the characters rejoice in the fact that they killed the vampire, but Bram literally didn’t even write that it was Dracula who died. Nor did he specify if it was Jonathan or Morris who was stabbed by a Romanian. Only in the epilogue is it made clear (a dead man can’t have children, I don’t think).

Overall, this was terrible. I’ve not read anything else by Stoker, so I don’t know if this hideous novel was just a one-off or if it’s actually how he writes, but it sucked regardless. Highly don’t recommend.

Content Warnings

leoniefnk's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense 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

2.0

Obviously this book is dated in its views, but as a woman this was hard to read without being offended. Beyond that, I felt no real tension, as it felt rather predictable and with no real risk. Still, I don't regret reading it, as it was interesting to read one of the principle foundations in vampire lore in literature.

Content Warnings