A review by lenorayoder
Dracula by Bram Stoker

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

3.0

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.
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