Bram Stoker

Audio Book

I had several reasons for picking up Dracula. First of all, this is probably my husband’s favorite book. He has read it twice in the last year and highly recommended it to me.

Secondly, it fit in with the time period that I was choosing for the Decades Challenge.

And lastly, I love vampire stories and I figured I should read this foundational book.

This story is told through the journal entries and letters of a wide cast of characters and it actually ends up being quite a tale of honor, romance( Lucy Westenra is proposed to three times in one day!) sacrifice, courage, and faith.

When Lucy Westenra and her friend Mina Murray are in danger from the vampires, Jonathan Harker(Mina’s intended) who has visited Castle Dracula and knows of the Count’s evil, Quincy P. Morris, Arthur Holmwood(Lord Godalming), John Seward and his friend Abraham Van Helsing all find themselves entwined in this nightmare that seems surreal.

I greatly enjoyed putting myself in the position of a Victorian-era reader. I tried to lay aside all of the different vampire tales that I have read and imagine this one as the beginning of it all. I was able to do this on a limited basis but I did find myself rolling my eyes. When Lucy Westenra begins to suffer from what is obviously anemia from blood loss I wanted to shout “Duh!” But then, I would remember that I have 100 years of Dracula lore behind me. Stoker doles the clues out little by little and it would have all been fresh and new in 1897. He truly was a masterful writer. And the foundation of all of the vampire stories is there for those of us looking back: the garlic, the lack of reflection in a mirror, the stake through the heart, the crucifix.

As many books as I have read with vampire storylines , I really didn’t have a clue as to the storyline of the original. There are entire characters that I had never heard of(one of them being Lucy Westenra.)

I would imagine this was a mesmerizing tale in it’s day. It’s been over a hundred years and I still loved it.(5/5)

Other Reviews of this book:

the bookworm

Age 30+..a lifetime in books