Gabriella > Recent Status Updates

hmmmm the historical citations seem to continue throughout the book…

I’m remembering why I DNFed this the first time I attempted it, it has a long section at the beginning of historical quotes and citations, similar to the Extracts section at the beginning of Moby-Dick. I find it tedious, but I’ve heard such great things that I am going to push through this time!

Only a couple weeks left!

Addictive

Is love like this? I wondered, as I leapt into the air again. "Better" was the whispered answer.
Like this? I asked, as I rippled my skin to fling the wind away from it. "Better," as my fingertips tasted the road.

“The total was written at the bottom of the page: more than eleven million. The mission would be half accomplished.”

I love how unabashedly mean and nasty the author (son of a Jewish mother and Communist father) is about the looks, intelligence, and characters of the Nazis and the spineless European heads of state who opened the doors for them

whoops I’ve been reading this via the Dracula Daily emails and I’m actually farther along than I realized

“Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels' eyes.”

Ok this is like the fourth time Renfield has escaped do yall just like not lock his window or what

Can I finish this before my work book club tomorrow? We shall see…

Slight drag in the middle but I’m loving the ending

the og vampire story where a guy who’s totally in love with you watches you sleep but instead of a vampire he’s a dweeby doctor and instead of a regular girl you are the one becoming a vampire

Really liking this so far

Arthur would do anything for Lucy, Seward would do anything for Arthur, Van Helsing would do anything for Seward… Dracula really was defeated by the power of friendship huh

I’m definitely into this! A little dry but in a good way, like a dry wine

Something cool that I didn't notice the first time reading this because all the language was pretty old fashioned / elevated: but upon the third read it's really standing out to me how different each character's voice is. Mina writes flowery descriptions, Lucy is quite succinct and generally less of a "good" writer, Seward's does feel more like a dictation, etc.

Mina & Jonathan’s marriage with Jonathan sitting up in his hospital bed is so sweet

oh oops Part V was not the final part. Part VI here we go

my god this book does not relent

Unless I’m misremembering… it never really gets explained why Dracula happens to be so interwoven with this particular friend group (Jonathan happens to be his solicitor, the house he buys happens to be next door to Dr Seward’s asylum where his loyal servant Renfield happens to be a patient, he is obsessed with victimizing Lucy…) Fate or something I guess?

I just don’t want to keep reading this :/ not for me