I have to admit that I am surprised at the accessibility of the writing in this novel. Classics are usually so stuffy and pretentious. Dracula, instead, read a bit more like a modern novel, with a less formal narrative style and believable dialogue. The parts from Dr. VanHelsing were a little more difficult to read through due to sentence structure, but I still made it through these okay. I liked the epistolary style and thought it worked really well for the story. The tale was still told in quite a well-encompassed way and the story felt full and atmospheric.

Some of the characters were better than others, but for the most part I felt like they were well constructed and believable. There was actually less of Count Dracula himself in this book than I expected, but I really didn't even think about that until I was writing this review, so I guess it didn't bother me.

This is a very long book, and I do think that there are some pieces that could have been easily excised, but there weren't any points that I found overly plodding. Things made sense, fit together really well, and the characters all seemed to make logical decisions. For a horror book, especially one of the very first of the genre, this is very believable and quite engaging. I enjoyed my read and was really pleased with how things went overall. The ending felt a bit rushed, so I could have used a little more conclusion, but otherwise a super solid read. It's the 1 in 5 situation where I solidly believe a classic was worth reading.