Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Dracula

Overall, this is a high three stars for me. There’s a lot to love here, but there are also some significant problems. If a book that I really want to read takes me 19 days to get through (most of those being swallowed by the middle of the book), I just can’t say that I really liked it.

First the pros: Dracula has the makings of a fascinating villain, evidenced by the many adaptations he’s inspired. There are a few moments that are fairly chilling, but I think his real strength is that every interaction has a creepy and/or disturbing undertone that makes him compelling. And

buying a home next to an asylum

is SO smart.

Count De Ville

made me CACKLE, what a dramatic bitch. I love all of the vampire lore, and seeing how much has changed and stayed the same around vampire (and werewolf!) mythos since this book was published. I’m especially curious about all the rose stuff, I’ve never heard that before. The idea that vampirism is almost a trance state that happens

more and more often before death makes it permanent

is such a good idea and works really well here.

I love Jonathan’s journals, and how much of a wife guy he is. Which makes sense because Mina is amazing, and I was so relieved when we first switched to her journals and she was an interesting character. Loved when Jonathan threw some serious shade at Van Helsing in his journal

for making Mina upset (“with actually a smile”)

. I found Seward’s

proposal

incredibly endearing. I love the weird dynamic that Morris, Seward, and Arthur have in combination with Lucy and

without her

- those boys are in looooove. I think Lucy SHOULD be allowed to marry all three of them. The whole

vampire hunting

crew is a little stupid (why aren’t they all wearing crucifixes 24/7 at the very least?), but honestly I think that’s realistic. Like Jonathan making a will

in case he dies vampire hunting

and the only beneficiaries being members

of the vampire hunting party

? Iconic. What an idiot. I wonder if he ever

grew that gray hair back out

.

Some of the writing hits really hard - what comes to mind immediately is the description of Lucy’s

evil vampire face, especially the part about Medusa’s snakes

, and Jonathan and Seward’s early diary entries.

The cons: Dracula is absent for a lot of the book, and when we see him again he’s

not as impressive as he was

in Jonathan’s early diary entries. I don’t like that a lot of his character is interpreted through Van Helsing. I don’t think we’re supposed to see Van Helsing as an unreliable narrator, which is frustrating as both a missed opportunity and because the way he deduces Dracula’s motivations and actions is so flawed that he shouldn’t end up being right. Also all the “child-brain” and criminal determinism was problematic, weird, and really undermined Dracula’s scare factor. The vampire lore also gets a little muddled once Van Helsing starts interpreting. Vampires

resting in holy ground and fixing that by making the ground more holy

was just plain stupid. The

three-foot-long stake

made me laugh and I doubt that was the intention.

For an epistolary novel I don’t think different character’s writing varies enough in tone, and some of the dialogue feels unrealistic, especially characters writing dialogue with accents and poor grammar into their journals - it was irritating to read for no reason, like who does that. Steward’s diary and Jonathan’s early diary feel mostly realistic, but the rest of the time they don’t feel enough like actual entries for me. Also, the in-universe explanation for why this book exists makes all of the really slow parts (and there are SLOW PARTS) make no sense, and I resented those slogs more once I read the explanation. Either filler should be cut out, or the filler should form an actual subplot. There were chunks of the book that took me days and days to read because they just weren’t compelling.

Mina is an interesting character with a lot of potential but Stoker is clearly sexist and that sexism really mars her, and makes a mess of Lucy (and her mom!). Hated how Van Helsing talked about both of them but especially Mina, ugh. Renfield feels like a lost character - it was never really clear what was going on with him, and I think that needed to be clearer with a better resolution, or he needed to be in less of the book. Van Helsing really rubbed me the wrong way, especially with the constant monologuing. I’m surprised he’s become such a focus of adaptations.

The action sequences are all lackluster, and a lot of them are the result of pretty contrived plotting (like the

keeping things from Mina, then not, then back again

). Overall I think this book mostly suffers from being a little too long. Some plot points get stretched too far, some themes are poorly defined, and a lot of characters are underdeveloped. If Bram Stoker had had a good 20th or 21st century editor I think this book would have been four or even five stars, but alas. I think the fact that almost every adaptation varies wildly from the source material kind of speaks for itself.

Content Warnings

atlantisblauw's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-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

4.0

Very enjoyable classic, glad I read it. It's not what I expected, it's more a mystery novel than a vampire story. You already know who did it, but he's difficult to catch. Most of the story is about finding a way to defeat him, and it becomes clear that Dracula is a devil, making this a very classic go(o)d vs (d)evil story.

One of the more interesting parts of the novel was that one of the main characters is a more traditional woman and the other calls herself a New Woman. She's said to have the mind of a man, so it's still pretty sexist, but she does take an active, even pivotal, role in the battle against evil.

What I didn't like as much is how all men fall in love with the traditional woman, who gets three proposals in one day, then later on keep kissing the New Woman's hand and telling her they wouldn't mind dying for her, etc. It's just too much.

I had some difficulty understanding one of the main characters, doctor Van Helsing. He's Dutch and I think that's why his grammar is bad, but as a Dutch person I can say he didn't make the mistakes Dutch people usually make. He clearly loves philosophical discussions, so that combined made it quite hard to understand him sometimes.

All in all, would recommend if you like classics, vampires, mysteries, epistolary novels, Christian fiction, or feminist literature (because Mina Harker is pretty cool).

Content Warnings

cyluho's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

toksoplazmozy's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-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

4.0

Gdyby nie seksizm, mizoginia, wychwalanie Boga (pod koniec książki wyjątkowo częste) i czystości Lucy i Miny (które nie są bohaterkami z krwi i kości a szkoda) oraz moralizatorskie wywody van Helsinga, byłoby 5 ⭐️. Przygodowa, szybka i przyjemna do czytania książka.

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