bloodthrstbooks 's review for:

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

4.0

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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This is a book that I’ve been meaning to read for so many years after being obsessed with the Carmilla web series as a teen. While that adaptation and the source material are obviously wildly different, Carmilla still stands out as a classic piece of literature with so many contemporary iterations and inspirations. What I really loved about this reading experience was the introduction and footnotes by Carmen Maria Machado. The introduction delves into the real-life inspiration for Carmilla, and how Le Fanu’s fictionalization of it is actually a disservice to the story, but that a modern reading of the story from the perspective of it being about the demonization of queerness (specifically queer women) can be found in the text. I found this reading of the story to be much more interesting than I would have had I read it without that context, and I think that Machado is what really made this book accessible to me as a modern reader. Reading Machado’s notes along with the text had me itching for more discussion on this book, and I definitely plan on doing further reading on it from a critical standpoint, which I feel like was the point of this edition.