meanieheadbookreviews 's review for:

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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In my defense, I was reading this the week of Halloween, which is very on brand. It’s very long, so I’m glad I finished it in time to include it in my October wrap up. I read this in junior high school and retained almost nothing. But it’s a pretty iconic book—most people know the basic summary. It’s spawned a lot of other horror literature/media, and it was cool to be able to go “oh, that’s where this comes from” as I was reading. The scene where Jonathan Harker sees Dracula climb out the window and scale the castle like a demon was genuinely chilling. I also enjoyed the men falling all over themselves for Lucy… she was really lining them up. And Van Helsing was such a drama queen. He’d diagnose something insane, leave the victim alone and unsupervised in the care of an uninformed idiot, and then be absolutely beside himself when he returned to find them further victimized. Very poor communication in the Van Helsing care team. Anyway. If you like horror fiction, this is a great cornerstone. And even though it was written well over 100 years ago, it’s still accessible and enjoyable.