Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Twitter
  3. Follow us on Instagram
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • About CBR
    • Getting Started
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • Leaderboard
    • The CBR Team
    • Recent Comments
    • CBR Interviews
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • How You Can Donate
    • Book Sale
    • CBR Merchandise
    • Supporters and Friends of CBR
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Follow Us

Open Registration for CBR13 ends Jan. 31! Sign Up Today!

> FAQ Home
> Genre: Fantasy > If you’re patient it’s not a bad read.

If you’re patient it’s not a bad read.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

January 26, 2020 by tillie 2 Comments

Dracula as a phenomenon has pretty much taken on a life of its own to the point where I thought I knew all about it.I mean, Dracula is Dracula right?! Turns out I don’t! Dracula isn’t at all what I expected.

It is told through a collection of diary entries, letters, notes and telegrams following various people through the novel. The story opens with Jonathan Harker traveling from London to the estate of Dracula in Transylvania. It’s all very spooky and mysterious, Dracula doesn’t eat, he seems to disappear during the day and is Mr. Harker his guest or his prisoner? Meanwhile Mr. Harker’s fiancée, Mina, is writing with her friend Lucy Westenra who suddenly seems to be succumbing to a mysterious illness.

The tale is quite quaint if you’re used to modern horror. It’s not graphic or readily violent save for a few places, rather most of it reads like a detective story trying to figure out what is happening. The characters make a lot of basic mistakes that become frustrating after a while. Once they start to realize what they’re dealing with they still leave one of the characters alone. And then they’re all surprised when the vampire gets her? Like, bitch, you knew there was a vampire?!

I liked the slow burn, but I also felt that maybe we could have spent more time on vampire lore. He just didn’t feel like much of a big baddy when all it takes it closing the windows and putting some garlic by the door. In fact in the men just listened the book would have been much shorter.

Still Mina is a great character, she’s smart and resourceful and kind. She furthers the story by gathering information and making conclusions from it. She also likes to memorize train tables which is awesome. There are too many men in this book and they aren’t of much use. But Mina gets the information through to them in the end. There isn’t much in the way of drama and there is much repetition. The final battle falls a bit short for me as most of the book has been sleuthing and skulking around and cutting women out of the conversation.

Filed Under: Fantasy, Fiction Tagged With: #fantasy, bram stoker, British, classics, Dracula, horror, tilliereads, vampire

tillie's CBR12 Review No:1 · Genres: Fantasy, Fiction · Tags: #fantasy, bram stoker, British, classics, Dracula, horror, tilliereads, vampire ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments

About tillie

CBR12 participantCBR11 participantCBR10 participantCBR  9CBR 8CBR 7CBR 6

Books. Yai! Words? YAI! View tillie's reviews»

Comments

  1. Emmalita says

    January 31, 2020 at 11:07 pm

    There are too many men in this book and they aren’t of much use.

    After a couple of decades of reading contemporary books written by and about women, this is how I feel about a lot of old classics.

    Reply
  2. Corvus says

    May 29, 2020 at 1:09 pm

    Been working through this as an audiobook with the Annotated Dracula open. A challenge to appreciate on it’s own merits (such as they are) what with the years of additional material. The sexism is so blatant it almost appears to be a satirical commentary. Almost.

    There are, in fact, some quite scary tension-making bits. Surprising, given the conceit of ‘written after the fact by suspect reporters’.

    Its also proving out a phrase I remember from EngLit (when it comes to evaluating fiction): “‘Dracula’ isn’t about Dracula. It’s about the people who encounter Dracula and how they are affected.’

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Recent Comments

  • wicherwill on Stop thinking and start creating!I'm one of those constant "I wish I knew how to draw" type people--I had this giant plan the summer after high school to wander...
  • wicherwill on When a Bot has feelingsThis also sounds like a sweet version of the Murderbot books I fell in love with last year! Put on hold :)
  • wicherwill on A fresh take on Beauty and the BeastHave you read the Robin McKinley Beauty and the Beast retellings? I assume so, I don't know how large that universe is but hers are...
  • wicherwill on Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.I totally agree that this book was so very difficult to follow along with, somehow. Like I'm still not entirely sure I could lay out...
  • wicherwill on Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.I read on fanfiction.net for a while, and then at some point I drifted away from it and was fanfic free for a number of...
See More Recent Comments »

Want to Help Out?

CBR has a great crew of volunteers, and we're always looking for more people to help out. If you have a specialty or are willing to learn, drop MsWas a line.

  • How You Can Donate
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in