Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Dracula by Bram Stoker

101 reviews

michad's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.25

Enjoyable but so wordy. The trope of stupid characters in horror seems to spring from this. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Eating disorder, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Death, Slavery, Chronic illness, Gun violence, Mental illness, and Cannibalism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Trafficking, Stalking, Self harm, Child death, Child abuse, and Sexism

agw622's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.25

I genuinely enjoyed reading this. It is a very exciting tale. My only critiques are that it can be a bit wordy and the charecters prone to hysteria sometimes. This does make reading so parts a little tedious, but it does chug along. For a classic book the treatment of the female charecters were very well done. I do wish the ending paid off more.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Forced institutionalization, Death, and Grief

Minor: Sexism and Confinement

missmoth's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Kidnapping, Confinement, Blood, Death, and Murder

Minor: Animal death and Forced institutionalization

stitchwilliam's review against another edition

mysterious 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

2.5

I feel like the novel shouldn’t really be called Dracula. "Mina" is a more suitable title if it had to be named after a character… 

Story was slow a lot of the time, but it was relatively suspenseful and mysterious for a classic (note: the novel is more mystery than it is horror). Implemented the idea of “not much happening” in order to create that suspense, which worked well when the novel first started, but not too well at the end (I don’t really enjoy reading multiple POV on people just traveling). 

Overall messages were concerning—E.g. xenophobia and stereotyping (this, unfortunately, probably reflected the thinking of some communities at that time…). 

The characters were kind of dry, except for Mina and Renfield. There isn’t a lot of character development overall. 

I also feel like the author also left out necessary details at times. I still don’t understand why some of the characters did certain things? E.g.

Why was Dracula so possessive of Jonathan at the beginning? How did Renfield meet Dracula? Why is Van Helsing so into vampires?

In Short - Outdated messages and plot drags a lot, but interesting to consider the story that popularized the vampire myths. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Xenophobia, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Violence, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Gore, and Misogyny

Minor: Animal death

renorsomethin's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

for a book about vampires this is pretty boring and drags on quite a lot as well as being full of repetitive misogynistic rants and xenophobia (just read anne rice or something instead)

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Body horror, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Medical content, and Xenophobia

Minor: Animal death

decepticons's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

2.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Emotional abuse, War, Blood, Gore, Xenophobia, Medical trauma, Body horror, Death, Gaslighting, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual violence, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Mental illness, Medical content, and Stalking

Minor: Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Child abuse, and Classism

Vampirism used to excuse racism

“My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them?” says enough about the book really

glashtyn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

As with most books of its time Dracula is exceptionally wordy and quite preachy. Otherwise the story is interesting and challenging. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Mental illness

ameliethemoomin's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

good god i love this book

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Murder, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Gore, Forced institutionalization, Death, Blood, Xenophobia, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Medical content

Minor: Antisemitism, Animal cruelty, Ableism, Animal death, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

gossamer_lens's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Just absolutely loved this book. I have tried picking it up several times and gotten stuck on the first 10 pages where we get this letter written by a main character that starts with essentially, "everything will be detailed and thoroughly mundane but here we are". Of course, give it a minute and this turns into "oh shit, oh oh shit... what am I to do!" 

There are several POVs that are delightfully conveyed via missives and have various "newspaper clippings" and other information interspersed. It is a fun story with some delightful characters. I became thoroughly invested once I made it about 10% of the way into the book and I only put the book down when I had to read other things for book club and the like. 

I 100% enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone! 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Violence, and Mental illness

swisner's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

Graphic: Animal death, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Mental illness