Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Dracula by Bram Stoker

107 reviews

euhfubeuh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

In my opinion, the format of Dracula as being told in letters and journal entries from different perspectives makes the story confusing post Harker’s entries in the beginning. Despite that, the entire exposition— for both Dracula’s and VanHellsing’s introduction— is well written and creates a good atmosphere for the story. From my understanding, the themes of Dracula set love and lust against each other in a debate over which is more dangerous. Idk I’m talking out of my butt; I don’t like the book that much, but I wish I did.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Blood, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Racial slurs

atlantisblauw's review against another edition

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).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Sexism, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Blood

mothstrand's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Forced institutionalization, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Ableism and Antisemitism

toksoplazmozy's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Blood, and Medical content

Minor: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Death of parent

riverofhorton's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The world-building was incredible, and all but one of the main group were fully fleshed out characters. The only things that let it down were poo Quincey, the language of Van Helsing being a slog to get through, and the repetition of a lot of the bits of lore. Four times we're told that Dracula can't cross running water, three times that killing Dracula will stop the transformation of any vampires that are somewhere between human and vampire, three times we're told that communion wafers act as a talisman against the vampires, plus a few others that I could mention. I wonder how long this book would be without these instances of repetition. I particularly enjoyed reading the letters between Mina and Lucy, and their respective journal entries about the other: Mina is definitely gay for Lucy, and I can see no other explanation for the way she talks of and to Lucy. I would like to have seen some more expression of that love, but I get that wasn't really possible when this was published, sadly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

olia_k21's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, and Blood

Moderate: Eating disorder and Xenophobia

Minor: Sexism and Death of parent

michad's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.25

Enjoyable but so wordy. The trope of stupid characters in horror seems to spring from this. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Slavery, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, and Murder

Minor: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Self harm, Sexism, Trafficking, and Stalking

agw622's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-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? Yes

4.25

I genuinely enjoyed reading this. It is a very exciting tale. My only critiques are that it can be a bit wordy and the charecters prone to hysteria sometimes. This does make reading so parts a little tedious, but it does chug along. For a classic book the treatment of the female charecters were very well done. I do wish the ending paid off more.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Confinement and Sexism

missmoth's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Blood, Kidnapping, and Murder

Minor: Animal death and Forced institutionalization

stitchwilliam's review against another edition

mysterious slow-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

2.5

I feel like the novel shouldn’t really be called Dracula. "Mina" is a more suitable title if it had to be named after a character… 

Story was slow a lot of the time, but it was relatively suspenseful and mysterious for a classic (note: the novel is more mystery than it is horror). Implemented the idea of “not much happening” in order to create that suspense, which worked well when the novel first started, but not too well at the end (I don’t really enjoy reading multiple POV on people just traveling). 

Overall messages were concerning—E.g. xenophobia and stereotyping (this, unfortunately, probably reflected the thinking of some communities at that time…). 

The characters were kind of dry, except for Mina and Renfield. There isn’t a lot of character development overall. 

I also feel like the author also left out necessary details at times. I still don’t understand why some of the characters did certain things? E.g.

Why was Dracula so possessive of Jonathan at the beginning? How did Renfield meet Dracula? Why is Van Helsing so into vampires?

In Short - Outdated messages and plot drags a lot, but interesting to consider the story that popularized the vampire myths. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Xenophobia, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Violence, and Kidnapping

Minor: Animal death