Dracula by Bram Stoker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It’s hard to believe that it took me until the age of 52 to read this. Then again, I actually feel like it took 52 years to get through it.
While parts of Dracula by Bram Stoker were brilliant, there were other parts that painfully moved along at a snails pace.
The format of using diaries and letters to tell (most of) the story was unique and must have been absolutely earth shattering when it was originally published in 1897. That said, I got lost a few times. I didn’t know who was “speaking.” And the shift in chapter 5 from Jonathan Harker’s journal to the letters of Mina and Lucy totally flummoxed me. In fact, I found it so jarring that it pre-disposed me to dislike their characters — something that persisted through the end. Loved Van Helsing, though.
I’m glad I read it. But I can’t envision ever reading it again. And I really don’t think I’d recommend that others read it, either.
One note: Simon Vance nailed it as the narrator. Had I been reading a physical copy of this book, I very well may have DNF’d it. But Vance got me through.
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