Dracula by Bram Stoker

Hello, hello:

Today I bring the second review for Booktober! This time, a book about one of the most terrifying and dangerous monsters in the folklore. So, take your clove of garlic and and a crucifix and... safe reading ;) 

SYNOPSIS:

"Dracula"(1897) tells the story of Jonathan Harker, an English lawyer, who travels to Transylvania, an Eastern European country. Count Dracula awaits him in his castle in order to complete a transaction. When he meets Count Dracula, Harker feels amused by the extravagant man that is in front of him and soon discovers that Dracula is non-dead, a vampire that will keep him in his castle while he attacks people that he knows.

REVIEW:

Published in 1897, Dracula is still a horror literature classic. With this novel, Bram Stoker, introduces the horrible monster and some atypical female characters for the Victorian period when the story is settled.

This work is written in an epistolary way, this means, it is written as if it was letters that the main characters send to each other, which makes the reader feel inevitably in tune with the plot and the suffering of the protagonists.

I had already mentioned this book in the Halloween tag that I did last year. Doubtlessly, it is one of my favourite novels for this time of the year. 

Vampire literature has gone through different phases, following Anne Rice´s works, where vampires have been romanticized and humanized. Do not get me wrong, I had my Twilight phase and I loved it, but sometimes one needs to read a novel where the vampire is the cruel being that stalks men, and the best way to do it is reading this classic.

Indeed, one of the best things from this novel is the importance that Stoker gives to the role of women. The reader encounters women, in a period that oppresses them and makes them follow its rules. However, there are a great contribution to the plot. On the one hand, Mina is one of the main characters, a heroine that joins men to chase Dracula. On the other hand, the author changes the rules of the period and gives women the role of anti-heroes, making them Dracula´s female vamps. 

Furthermore, Stoker shows the fierce and dangerous side of women in his work.

All in all, this novel is a classic and a must if we want to read vampire literature with the classical image of the vampires as the bloodsuckers eager to kill and destroy. A perfect choice for getting goosebumps while reading it in the light of a candle, the most terrifying night of the year.