21.7k reviews for:

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker

3.84 AVERAGE

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
slow-paced
dark mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: N/A
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
dark tense
tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
adventurous dark inspiring 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
adventurous challenging 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
dark slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It was a good audiobook to listen to, I loved the different voices and actors! That was really cool. Dracula was a good Gothic horror novel, I understand why it's a classic, this was probably a really big step for the horror genre! Although, I did get lost a couple times just because there's so much going on and it's all written as journal entries (which was also cool, just a lot to follow)
It was a very classic story of good vs. evil, and it was honestly a good representation of assault against women. Not that women were the only victims, however they're more present. Dracula stalks women, attacks them in the night, and forces them to do/become something they don't want to. And honestly Bram Stoker did a really good job not putting blame on women, even for this being written in 1897. You would think for something written that long ago, you'd see more "if she wasn't doing *this* if she didn't look like *that* then this wouldn't have happened" but instead, Bram Stoker approached this novel and his characters with understanding and sympathy. I was a little shocked, but I really loved it.
dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I think in order to enjoy this you have to be ready to look past some period-specific sexism and orientalism. Yes it does start to drag in the middle, but the descriptive writing builds tension really well and the plot is actually interestingly constructed through multiple perspectives. When you consider that there was a time when few readers already knew that Dracula was a vampire, I can see how the mystery would be very intriguing and damn if I didn’t want to see how it ended.

Side note: I read this after seeing Eggers’s Nosferatu, and Willem Dafoe is so perfectly cast as the royalty-free Van Helsing