A review by aaxa
Carmilla and Laura by S.D. Simper

4.25

i went into this book with extremely low expectations, retellings (especially queer ones) are in my experience, horrible (think books like songs of achilles- which isnt bad but is still horrible if that makes sense?). they all share a similar issue, the writer (in this case simper- in the case of the song of achilles miller) while talented uses prose that to me feels like tumblr poetry. if youre as chronically online as i am that makes sense to you- i dont totally know how to explain it. and make no mistake, simper is (based only on this book) undeniably a talented writer, better than miller, also (and this is key) simper is clearly actually gay, which is revolutionary in the field of retelling classics (like wtf is up with straight women trying to write books about gay guys?!) and i love how she managed the book (it was very different from the original but definetly very similar and connected to it). when i first started it i thought it was going to be 5 stars! 
the reasons that it isnt are as followed a) it had the tumblr poetry issue b) the ending was nonsensical c) not enough pining d) carmilla wasnt evil enough and e) (this is totally my opinion) i kind of love the "they are but they arent" sapphic dynamic (like the original carmilla but with a little more queerbaiting (i lowk love queerbaiting in classics sorry not sorry)) 
too much tumblr poetry especially the way religion was dealt with, the ending wouldve been better if it was tragic, it was too nice and too convenient, i like when characters are miserable (hence c), carmilla was, in the original, like really bad, including to laura (but this is my preference for toxic novel relationships lol), and like i said i think carmilla and laura got into the relationship a bit too early into the novella. 
either way this is one of the better classical retellings considering the original work really didnt give a ton to go off of!