I don't read much horror so I was pleased to find that this book is so much more about the characters than it is Dracula himself.

I adored the first section. Jonathan Harker's diary while he's at Dracula's castle for the first 70 pages of the book was outstanding. Genuinely the best thing I've read in a long time and if I could give that section alone five stars, I would. It took my breath away. I loved the atmosphere and his increasing knowledge of what was going on and who Dracula was. And then it just stopped and was actually kind of terrifying because there's so much you don't know. It's fantastic.

I never quite connected with the rest of the book the way that I connected with that first bit, but I did enjoy it. After that we follow Harker's fiance and one of her friends as Dracula invades their lives. There's so little on Dracula in the book until the end that I almost didn't care about him. That was one of my biggest struggles. Once Lucy's plotline achieved closure and we continued on to learn about Dracula, I kind of lost interest. It felt like the story had ended in all the meaningful ways and it was difficult to keep my attention for the final hundred pages to the climax.

But I really enjoyed all the characters. The epistolary format makes this so interesting to me. I don't think I'd have cared as much if we weren't reading the letters and journals of all the characters involved. It was fascinating, apart from some dragging toward the end.

Van Helsing had me cackling. Like who does this dude think he is. This poor woman dies after some vampiric ill deeds and her fiance says he imagined them married after her gave her his blood in a transfusion. And my guy Van Helsing starts laughing his head off over polygamy because four different men gave her blood. My dude, read the room. I don't know what his deal was, but I loved him.

I loved this. Would highly recommend if you like slow and character driven books. It was fascinating and I had a great time.