Reviews with content warning for Stalking - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

40 reviews

entrancedbywords's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Let me lose my 💩 for a moment! I totally forgot I owned a copy of Dorian Grey. I went through a short lived phase of trying to collect as many penguin classics as possible. Unfortunately cause I own so many books, I forget I owned this and almost re-brought recently when I went out shopping.

Anyway...I've heard so much about this. I know it has stage plays and I haven't seen any. But now I can form my own idea of how this book can be interpreted.

When I read books I usually don't care about the author. No offence but your personal life is none of my business. But for some reason I decided to google Oscar Wilde. Bruh, what world have I been living under to find out he was gay and this book was written because he wanted to live openly in a society that excluded gay people.

I aboustely love "old english" books. I love the way English has evolved to what it currently is and how poetic in a sense something used to be.

So, this story is supposed to be how Wilde saw himself or at least a verison he wished he could be. I didn't see the gay subtext that was supposedly littered through but rather I saw a reckless, selfish, curious, imaginative man. A man who acts highly yet somehow easily influenced while feeling so certain of himself. If that's how Oscar Wilde wanted himself to be than that's something else entirely.

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imjumokay's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

fuck lord henry all my homies hate lord henry. good on victoria for leaving that miserable POS. rich people should have their excesses seized. get a job. my copy of this book was old and withered and musty like dorian gray and his crusty ass. basil <3 bby you didnt deserve what you got <3

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winter_b's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious reflective tense 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? Yes

4.0

I was expecting this book to mainly be a character study, so I somehow hadn't expected there to be as much plot as there was. Very engaging!

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clovetra's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

i find my feelings very hard to put into words. i cant describe how this book made me feel. it is topsy-turvy, it changes its pace midway through, and is constantly adapting itself.
i do think the online "hype" about this book makes this book overrated - but it still is a good book! i do feel as though this is one of those books when just reading it in isolation renders it a 3-star read, but with the introduction & biography following wilde, as well as context for the time in which it was written, the story opens itself up.
i found the plot to lowkey be all over the place? i mean up until sibyl is

murdered

i was enjoying this, and understood the hype. but following that plot point, this book does a complete 180, and i didn't know what to expect. the entire tone shifts almost instantaneously that night in the theatre, and i think its a neat comparison for

dorian's descent into madness from the painting to begin in a theatre - art destroying art in a sense

. but yet again, without deeper analysis & trying to read this book just as it is à la 'death of the author', this book would not be as good, and honestly that's why it isnt a 5-star. that and the writing gave me a headache many of times because i had no clue what i had just read because 75 words no longer used in the english language were present in a sentence that was 7 lines long. i get that's how classics are written but doesn't mean i have to like it!!
anyways, what else do i have to say? honestly i fail to truly grasp this book as well, i think because a lot of wilde's obvious intentions were masqueraded in subtext, and i am not good at subtext!! at all!! i am not a very smart reader (unless im actively trying to solve a mystery novel. then i become mf sherlock holmes).
i enjoyed basil & dorian's characterisations, but henry's seemed to go over my head. i think im gonna have to read a deep analysis of his character because i seriously don't get how it is insinuated

henry sends dorian down his corrupt path

. yet again that could be because i missed the subtext or actually had no idea what i was reading due to the language used. sue me.
i reallllyyy enjoyed the ending. the book lowkey kinda floundered in the middle, but picked up again at full steam at around chapter 12.
also no shade but chapter 11 isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. if im honest its probably the most important chapter of the book!!!
anyways booktwt dont sue me for not liking it, sue my brain for being a dumb ass bitch.

edit 30/7/24: nvm im bumping it a star up cuz im up thinking about the ending

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feyx's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The first half of the book was a little bit boring. My main thought was Please make Lord Henry shut up but the second half really got me. Absolutely loved the ending

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missmarguerita's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Utterly terrifying, fabulous ending.

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sestout's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

if you think lord henry would hate you, then you're doing something right.

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bbmaan's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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inoshiiro's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

The Picture of Dorian Gray has always been on my TBR, and has been collecting dust since I purchased the Penguin Classics version sometime around 2020. This year, for an English course concerning literature in the fin de siècle, I was given the excuse to finally read the novel when it appeared in the course readings.
I think my reading was likely a bit coloured by the literary/societal concepts we were learning about alongside the texts. The mentions of degeneration, aesthetes, and cultural biases were jumping out at me when I read the text, highly influencing the way I approached its themes. I feel like if I read this novel earlier in my life, I would likely have had a very different viewpoint on it.
I think the themes of homosociality and queer sexualities are prominent, but I felt more drawn to the way the characters and its story embodied the prevailing ideas about degeneration, social-Darwinism, and the role of the arts.
As a femme reader as well, the attitudes towards women were of course, unappealing. I wasn't put off the story or anything--and I very well know that the attitudes are definitely a product of their time--but that didn't stop me from feeling baffled at

Lord Henry's remarks about female intelligence, and sympathetic to the the OTT cruelty towards Sybil Vane

.
Despite this, I did enjoy the book. The storyline was something I vaguely already knew about due to the plots prevalence in pop culture, and the fact that the book was recommended to me by an ex-highschool friend. However, the way the novel unfolded, as well as the more intimate details were unknown to me until I was actually sitting there and reading. I finished the thing in two sittings, well before we had to discuss it in class.
My rating of 3.75 stars can be concluded like this: The book was entertaining and I found myself looking forward to the plots progression. That being said, it is still a book about men and their morals, which isn't exactly my cup of tea. And the fact that I had to write a 2500 word comparative essay about it for class probably didn't boost my enjoyment either.

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kananineko's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I loved this! Great classic. Probably one of the most digestible bc of its relatively short length. My only complaint would be that some sections dragged in the middle to me (all the super long descriptions of what Dorian was learning)

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