A review by corissamcc
Dracula by Bram Stoker

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Literary Hot Take:

Thoughts from just having read The Great Gatsby and Dracula back-to-back. Do with this what you will. 

The Great Gatsby isn’t worth reading nor is it a good piece of literature. (At all nor especially in High School curriculums.) It fails as a Tragedy and/or Satire; I see no Dramatic Irony, Metaphors, or Allegories. The characters are bad people who learn nothing and the reader is not warned against their actions. It states it as fact and that’s it. It is depression for the sake of depression. It drags you down and leaves you there -- and that's the point. 

Soullessness like that is not worth reading. 

Replace it, instead, with: Dracula. 

Dracula is also dark. It takes you to evil places. It shows the worst of creation and it harms all that is good and pure. However, there is one key difference — hope. The mission of the book is the simple, yet beautiful, missing of Good to conquer Evil. With that, Dracula is a deeply religious book and has so much reverence for Christianity and the True Presence in the Eucharist that one cannot help but to meditate on the dichotomy of Good and Evil. It is simple yet so deep. 

Where The Great Gatsby leaves you sad and hopeless, Dracula leaves you feeling bittersweet yet hopeful. Hopeful that there *is* Good in the world and it can overcome what is evil. Taking a reader to a place of destitution and hopelessness is just fine, as long as you give them something to reach out to by the end. That, Dracula accomplishes.