Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Dracula

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Dracula by Bram Stoker

120 reviews

meganpbennett's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

4.0

I read Dracula many many years ago, and thought it was interesting. Didn't give it much thought except for a few school assignments, or considering a reread along with some other classics. Then, in 2022, people started sharing a link to a substack, where someone was emailing the novel to readers, in real time. I signed up.

All of the characters keep a journal of some form, and it's all dated. In the standard printing of the novel, all of Johnathon's several months at Castle Dracula would have been first, then followed up by Mina and Lucy's correspondence. In this case, it's in real time, so you only see what happens on any given day. There are long gaps between Harker's entries, as he starts to realize what is really going on and how he is trapped in the castle. Lucy's death scene, a chapter or so in the book, is stretched over the almost a month Dracula fed on her until she became a vampire, making it all the more emotional when they have kill her. Or when the group heads to Castle Dracula, and it takes the same number of days for us as it did for them. Very interesting way of reading a novel, and one that several other people are putting together.

Edit: 2023-11-07: After forgetting to unsubscribe from Dracula Daily before the novel reset, I decided to reread it. Still a fascinating way to read a novel, in chronological order.

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prettiestwhistles's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

3.75

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aardwyrm's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

It's. The one with Dracula.

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mmefish's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Terrifying in the best way possible, “Dracula” is an iconic piece of literature for a reason.
If only the lengthy dramatic exclamations by the characters were cut by half…

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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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dark 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

2.5

This book was so slow and confusing! I didn’t know what was happening most of the time because it’s formatted/told through letters and diary entries from several people. Plus I read it on audio with only one narrator doing slightly different voices which is probably why it was so confusing

I wish I had listened to the Audible version because I just saw it has a full cast including Tim Curry and Alan Cumming 😩 Maybe I would’ve enjoyed that one better?

Only reason I finished was because 1) I was doing the audio version while painting 2) it’s for my book club 3) by the time I thought about DNFing I was a little over 50% through (plus I was hoping the second half would be better) 🙈 and 4) I can finally say I’ve read Dracula

The pacing took away from the horror and the story dragged longer than it needed to because the climax is two sentences long.

There were some interesting parts and I enjoyed the first 100ish pages, but honestly I can’t recommend this book to anyone and I couldn’t tell you much about what happened.

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