A review by ambenicole418
Carmilla: A Critical Edition by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.0

The way it’s never explained why Carmilla’s mom just abandons her in people’s homes, so she can suck the lives out of their daughters is kinda funny to me. There is definitely an untold story there. Is her mom also a vampire? What is she doing after she abandons Carmilla? What is this journey of life and death she talks about? It also seems kinda reckless to abandon your vampire daughter in the castle right next door to the father of the girl Carmilla killed just a few days ago. How did her mom think that was gonna play out lol???

I have mixed feelings on Carmilla. One one hand I feel for her because she was turned into a vampire against her will and she’s just doing what she needs to do in order to survive. And as much as I wish Laura and Carmilla could live out their lives in a happy, sapphic vampire/human relationship, Carmilla was slowly killing Laura and killed a bunch of other women, so her death was justified and kinda necessary.

I also wish the romance between Laura and Carmilla was developed a little bit more. While I do recognize that Laura does indeed have romantic feelings for Carmilla, there are points in the story where it feels like Carmilla is 10x more in love with Laura, than Laura is with Carmilla. For example, Carmilla tells Laura that she has never been in love before and she will never be in love with anyone besides Laura, but Laura never tells Carmilla that she loves her too or opens up about her feelings for Carmilla at all. I guess this could mostly be attributed to the fact that this a 100 page short story rather than an entire novel though.
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