A review by colingooding
Re: Dracula by Bram Stoker

adventurous dark reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

The novel Dracula is made up of a collection of letters and notes that are dated from May 3rd to November 7th. A couple years ago, the newsletter Dracula Daily has the brilliant idea to actually send an email for each day represented in the book, so that you could follow along in "real time". I decided to join in this year when Bloody FM put out a podcast production called Re: Dracula, which is fully voice acted and produced with sound effects and music. 

Not every single day has entries, with a few long stretches of time with none at all, so I was able to mostly keep up with it day to day, maybe falling behind a week at most a couple times. It was a fascinating experience! It gives you a lot of time to reflect and anticipate, and a good friend of mine was following along at the same time, which made for some fun discussions. The podcast is great and really immerses you in the setting and characters. 

I had never read this before, so it was interesting to see what aspects I know about through other vampire stories and what has been changed over the years about the Dracula mythos. 

There are a ton of memorable and effectively creepy moments throughout, but also there are long bits that aren't particularly entertaining and feel drawn out. Not all of it held my attention, and I think perhaps if I read this traditionally I wouldn't rate it as highly as I have done for the daily format. I'm glad I spent the time to try this out.