sam > Recent Status Updates

catherine labadie has done it again

mentally i have been picturing this all happening in upstate NY in the 90s and that’s that!!! this book doesn’t feel rooted in any time or place honestly. there’s not really anything distinctive that feels edwardian or location specific. i’m not even sure why i have that era in my mind. maybe ig marketing? so this is now 90s new york. source: trust me

(i’m a slut for gossip girl archetypes in media)

omg wow dracula is back i forgot he even existed (he was on page for two seconds before he went back to his home …by scurrying like a lizard i assume😔). this is getting good again let me shut up.

i’m not going to give stoker the grace of saying there are elements of satire or critique on misogyny in this but i will say his ability to make the men unknowingly (or at least not self aware) bumbling and aloof while allowing mina to be strong and smart in her own right is nice... until we have to read for the 12th time how the men put mina to sleep for her weak constitution 🫡

“she has a man’s brain and a woman’s heart” 🤠

best sex scene i've read all year. labadie, needs to host a masterclass for the girls on how to write erotica. not corny, not uncomfortable. wasn't beaten death with metaphors and hideous euphemisms. perfect length. was just genuinely hot and fun!!!

catherine labadie has me researching the ten plagues of egypt & biblical plagues at 8pm

there's crack in these pages

every man in this world is such an obsessive simp 🙂‍↕️

van helsing: tell me EVERYTHING
mina: well my husband
van helsing: oh babygirl i alr know about that i read all your letters to lucy

“… was disheartened to find it entirely bereft of lurid detail.” perhaps, akin to tartt recognizing readers would want *more* from TSH as a thriller. the first time i read this i found the first half perfection and the second half lacking. on a reread, the dramatics, humor and metaphors are everything in book ii. tartt is incredibly smart and incredibly cheeky. simply nobody is comparable to mother (donna).

“why, if all people, had they chosen to tell me?” because you’re a weak simp, richard. it’s really all so direct and clear :/

"after all, the appeal to stop being yourself, even for a little while, is very great... to escape the cognitive mode of experience, to transcend the accident of one's moment of being"

a bar!!! (but also you murdered someone bby)

if one more person removes the garlic or crucifixes daddy van helsing is painstakingly buying and picking up imma lose it

richard, completely unprovoked, going into a multipage monologue that everyone must be fruity is so real actually

chapter 3 has always been one of my favorite (and the most memorable) chapter of TSH for me. the gold standard for creating an atmospheric, immersive and dread filled environment that lasts far too long and yet not long enough. on a reread everything is even more dreamlike and hazy. metaphors more direct. characters more straightforward. themes even more fun to shift though <3

i forgot how God tier the prose is. i might reread again in nov/dec.

it’s growing more and more difficult to pick this up. harker’s narrative was sooo immersive and easy to become obsessed with. now i’m just bored. very repetitive and very frustrating decisions.

(i am sorry for everything i said about you earlier though, lucy! ily.)

oh. also i fear my edition of dracula may be riddled with ai art. there is no illustrator credited in the book, on blackstone’s website or social media. i’ve looked and can’t find anything. absolutely horrible news if so.

i've been so busy w work i've had no time to read!!!

// van helsing is so camp. who is this DIVA <3
// 19th century lit can be so intimidating (for me) but this is totally accessible for modern readers.
// unchecked misogyny is never enjoyable to read, but par for the course in an older classic i suppose.
// shocked at how genuinely scary this is!
// dracula is not hot. when did he become sexified in media lol?

yes lucy is a dumb bitch but i really hope nothing bad happens to her. not a thought behind those eyes but her rosy cheeks and sweet disposition have charmed me.

“men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as far as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be”

sybau lucy my god. literatures first pick me 😔