As the trees start to lose their leaves and the weather gets chilly, you’re probably looking for a fun, spooky book to read during your free time in between homework and studying. Or, if you’re like me, you’ve been savoring said spooky book day by day for months. Bram Stoker’s Dracula may seem like a lot to take on at first (especially if you’re already reading a book by a British guy from the 1800’s for school), but I swear you will not regret it. 

Dracula is about a young, English solicitor who, having just passed the bar exam, goes off to Transylvania to attend to the real estate wishes of a certain count with an aversion to mirrors. 

It’s about two close gal-pals hanging out in graveyards on a seaside vacation where they investigate the town’s mysteries. 

It’s an exploration of Victorian anxieties about gender and sexuality through the lense of a monster story. 

It’s about a cowboy.

What makes Dracula so unique and fun (when the cast isn’t being subjected to psychological terrors) is the eccentric group Stoker puts together to fight the coffin-sleeping, lizard-crawling, decrepit old man threatening to take over England. Jonathan Harker loves his wife despite the horrors of Castle Dracula. Mina Murray supports her bestie through terrifying dreams and that weird bat that comes to their window every night. Lucy Westerna is perfect. She could eat a child and I’d still love her (totally not foreshadowing). Seward’s a mad scientist, Morris is a Texan stereotype, and Holmwood is normal. Van Helsing has a LOT of PhD’s. 

This book will have you laughing (because of the comedic irony stemming from what you probably know about the Count), crying (it gets really dark), and slapping your forehead (these guys can be real dumb). I never would have expected to be so invested in this two-hundred year old horror story, but Jonathan Harker and the gang have found their way into my heart. I hope you’ll take a chance and enjoy them, too!

by Lucy DeMeo ’24, Assistant Arts and Entertainment Editor

24ldemeo@montroseschool.org