#but no i've never read dracula | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spicebiter · 2 months

Text

Reading List (Latest Update Aug. 4, 2024)

The full list of books I'm interested in reading. Spoiler before you open the read-more: This list has 500+ entries so it's a tad long. The only reason it isn't numbered is because of tumblr's character limit on blocks of text, which this far exceeds. It is, instead, bulleted and separated into chunks of 50 after the cut.

I'm pretty much constantly adding things to all of my lists- hence why I'm amending when this was last updated to the title itself- and will update this post anytime I update the wheel I use to randomize my next choice, which usually happens after I've added or subtracted a significant number of options.

Beowulf

Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism; Third Edition

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

Andersen’s Fairy Tales by H.C Andersen

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Animorphs Series by K.A Applegate

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Emma by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Oracle Night by Paul Auster

Bunny by Mona Awad

Borderline by Mishell Baker

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

Just Above My Head by James Baldwin

Crash by J.G Ballard

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud

Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

I’m With the Band by Pamela Des Barres

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron

Gateways to Abomination by Matthew M. Bartlett

Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

The Stone in the Skull by Elizabeth Bear

Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone De Beauvoir

The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir

Art of Fiction by Walter Besant and Henry James

Pushkin; A Biography by T.J Binyon

The Etched City by K.J Bishop

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Out of Africa by Karen Blixen

In the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette De Bodard

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown

Sonnets From The Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner

The Serpent and the Rose by Kathleen Bryan

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

Notes of a Dirty old Man by Charles Bukowski

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess

Song of the Simple Truth by Julia de Burgos

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

Parable of the Sower Octavia E. Butler

American Predator by Maureen Callahan

A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre

Through the Woods by Emily Carrol

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

The Vorrh by B. Catling

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

The City of Brass by SA Chakraborty

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Moliere Biography by H.C Chatfield-Taylor

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng-en

Wicket Fox by Kat Cho

The Awakening by Kat Chopin

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

Finna by Nino Cipri

The Divinity Student by Michael Cisco

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark

Pranesi by Susanne Clarke

Parasite by Darcy Coates

The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer

Swimming With Giants by Anne Collet

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Inherit the Wind by Linda Cushman

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Dreadnought by April Daniels

The Devourers by Indra Das

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

The Collected Stories by Welty Eudora

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Introducing Evolutionary Psychology by Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate

A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Sanctuary by William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

It Devours! by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Time and Again by Jack Finney

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Johnny Tremain by Esther Hoskins Forbes

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

A Passage to India by E.M Forster

The Diary of Anne Frank

Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) by Al Franken

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

At Fear’s Altar by Richard Gavin

Count Zero by William Gibson

The Miracle Worker by William Gibson

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg

The Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Marathon Man by William Goldman

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin

Grimm’s Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

My Life in Orange by Tim Guest

The Library of the Unwritten by A.J Hackwith

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

Empire of Light by Alex Harrow

The Little Locksmith by Katherine Butler Hathaway

City of Lies by Sam Hawke

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Descendant of the Crane by Joan He

Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

Dune Series by Frank Herbert

Cover-Up by Seymour M. Hersh

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

The Outsiders by S.E Hinton

The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Rule of Magic by Alice Hoffman

Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman

The Iliad by Homer

The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

Songbook by Nick Hornby

To Escape the Stars by Robert Hoskins

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Warrior Cats Series by Erin Hunter

The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur

The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Daisy Miller by Henry James

False Bingo by Jac Jemc

The City We Became by N.K Jemisin

The Fifth Season by N.K Jemisin

Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson

Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce

Ulysses by James Joyce

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan

The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan

The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan

The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

Out of Control by Kevin Kelly

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Liu Ken

Ironweed by William Kennedy

You By Caroline Kepnes

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Very Best of Caitlin R Kiernan

Carrie by Stephen King

Christine by Stephen King

Cujo by Stephen King

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King

The Shining by Stephen King

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Sir James Knowles and Sir Thomas Malory

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Gidget by Frederick Kohner

The Cipher by Kathe Koja

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Extravagance by Gary Krist

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

Babel by R.F Kuang

The Poppy War by R.F Kuang

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

False Hearts by Laura Lam

The Wide, Carnivorous Sky by John Langan

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Changeling by Victor Lavelle

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by David Herbert Lawrence

Lies of the Fae by M.J Lawrie

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Jade City by Fonda Lee

Forest of Souls by Lori M. Lee

The Dirt; Confessions of the Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

The Complete Pyramids by Mark Lehner

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Human Errors by Nathan H. Lents

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Small Island by Andrea Levy

A Ruin of Shadows by L.D Lewis

Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

Let the Right One In by John Lindquist

Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Hike by Drew Magary

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Gregory Rabassa

A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin

Property by Valerie Martin

The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy

The Group by Mary McCarthy

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald

Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Rapture by Claire McGlasson

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Quattrocento by James McKean

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin

Terms of Endearment Larry McMurtry

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi

A Mencken Chrestomathy by H.L Mencken

My Life as Author and Editor by H.L Mencken

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyer

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

The Life of Edna by St. Vincent Millay

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Sexus by Henry Miller

Slade House by David Mitchell

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy by Barrington Moore Jr.

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Jazz by Toni Morrison

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

The Ritual by Adam Nevill

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng

The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Vurt by Jeff Noon

Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Bernard Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

Twelve Nights at Rotter House by J.W Ocker

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver

Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen

How To Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

Certain Dark Things by M.J Pack

The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

Complete Stories of Dorothy Parker

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

How the Light Gets In by Jolina Petersheim

The Song the Owl God Sang by Benjamin Peterson

A Mankind Beyond Earth by Claude A. Piantadosi

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodie Piccoult

We Owe You Nothing by Punk Planet

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe

Witchmark by C.L Polk

Complete Novels by Dawn Powell

Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Truth and Beauty by Ann Pratchett

Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett

The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

High Moor by Graeme Reynolds

Sybil by Schreiber Flora Rheta

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Stiff by Mary Roach

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry M. Robert

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder

The Planet Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Lisa and David by Theodore Isaac Rubin, M.D

The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

The Sunshine Court by Nora Sakavic

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Sallinger

Franny and Zooey by J.D Sallinger

The Man Who Collected Machen by Mark Samuels

Ariah by B.R Sanders

Blindness by Jose Saramago

Shane by Jack Schaefer

Vicious by V.E Schwab

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

Bhagavad Gita by Graham M. Schweig

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Love Story by Erich Segal

The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Unless by Carol Shields

City Come A-Walkin’ by John Shirley

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Crush by Richard Siken

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

The Terror by Dan Simmons

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Oil! by Upton Sinclair

Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The Flinch by Julien Smith

Chlorine by Jade Song

Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria

Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza

Last Breath by Peter Stark

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

City Under the Moon Hugh Sterbakov

Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susane

Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Walden by Henry D. Thoreau

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley

Secrets of the Flesh by Judith Thurman

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima

The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Crier’s War by Nina Varela

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne

The Last Empire- Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal

Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Candide by Voltaire

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Fire in the Sky; The Walton Experience by Travis Walton

Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L Wang

The Graduate by Charles Webb

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells

The Invisible Man by H.G Wells

The Time Machine by H.G Wells

The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

Prophesy Deliverance by Cornel West

Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Roman Fever by Edith Wharton

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

The Code of the Woosters by P.G Wodehouse

Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

The Electric Koolaid Test by Tom Wolfe

Old School by Tobias Wolff

John Dies at the End by David Wong

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dolloway by Virginia Woolf

Bitch; In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel

The Black Tides of Heaven by Jy Yang

Negative Space by B.R Yeager

Beneath the Moon by Yoshi Yoshitani

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Tomorrow, and Tommorow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

#spiced #reading list #when i say i have a special interest in special interests this is where that gets me #i particularly love this list because i have all of the wheel of time series and it's one of my favorites ever #but no i've never read dracula

0 notes

yallemagne · 2 years

Text

So, on a plane yesterday, I skimmed through the rest of P.N. Elrod's book, Quincey Morris, Vampire.

It's not very good. It's poor fanfiction. I do not support attacking fanfic writers or the stereotype of fanfiction being the epitome of bad writing (most of my writing is fanfiction and I'm rather proud of some of it [some bc a good deal of my older work is amateur]), but it's a rather amateur plot where Elrod spends the entire book rewriting the book she's supposed to be building off of, not desecrating.

Now, Elrod has quite a few vampire books, so I think this story is just a self-indulgent take on a neat lil idea she had, but she felt the need to discard all of Bram's vampire lore and all of Bram's plot and squish her own in. I respect Elrod as a fellow fanfic writer, but I don't respect her character assassinations of Jonathan and Renfield and the attempts to justify the assault of Lucy and Mina. Though I guess that Dracula was an unreliable source? Hopefully, the intention was not for the reader to take Dracula's claims seriously.

Since I skimmed, I cannot say that I am the best source. I did read the beginning part up until Dracula starts claiming Jonathan is an insane adulterer. Then I just couldn't take any of it seriously. I mean, I couldn't really take it seriously when Dracula and Quincey were just... having a calm conversation but whatever.

Spoilers of course.

So, in the story, Quincey's body is dragged from the sleeping team's side by wolves and they cannot find him once they wake. Why did the wolves drag him? Because Dracula is apparently alive and has figured out that Quincey is a vampire. Dracula blackmails Quincey into coming with him back to his castle. If he had refused, Dracula would have murdered Quincey's whole team.

And yet after that, the book tries to claim that Dracula was secretly in the right the entire time.

Dracula has green eyes. It has no plot relevance, I don't believe Quincey remarks on the change from red to green, it's just a dumb detail that keeps being shoved down our throats.

Through Dracula's guided questions, Quincey realizes that a woman he had sex with years ago that drank his blood and forced him to drink hers was a vampire (apparently she's also a character from one of Elrod's other books). Why didn't he change into a vampire sooner? Dracula claims there are two different types of vampires, and he's the cooler one while Quincey is the lamesauce one. So Quincey only has to drink animal blood. Quincey worries that his tainted blood may have killed Lucy but Dracula's like "... nah".

Quincey confronts him on everything, but Dracula has a bullshit answer for anything. I feel the only bearable way of reading this is the interpretation that Dracula is gaslighting Quincey. Quincey says "you killed Lucy, you fed on her repeatedly and she died of blood loss". Dracula says "no that was your fault. she would have gotten better if you just left her drained of blood". Dracula claims that Mina's still gonna become a vampire, but bc she wished hard enough I guess she got to not be hated by God anymore. And he claims he broke off his connection with her amicably, and they're totally cool now.

He claims that he was in the right to kill Renfield because Renfield was a madman and would have hurt the team... when he only attacked Dracula in defence of Mina. This is so damn ableist. Dracula, you can't claim self-defence when you are a fucking vampire with the power to hypnotize people. That was a gratuitous use of force against a mentally ill man that was of no great threat to you.

Worst of all, when told of Jonathan's account of the Weird Sisters assaulting him, he's like "oh, I didn't interfere. I watched. they had their way with him several times. and he liked it. I mean, he had an ensuing mental breakdown, but he was totally down with being raped in his sleep every night." He claims that Jonathan was just oversensitive to the paranormal and that everything he wrote in his journal was delusions. He gaslights Jonathan. Apparently, there were servants in the castle. Dracula, you fucking twit, that would be the strangest thing to fucking lie about, and you know it. When questioned why he locked Jonathan in his castle and left him for dead instead of taking him to Whitby with him, Dracula waves his hand like "eh. couldn't. don't ask me to elaborate. I'm still an amazing host."

Quincey later denies Dracula's claims about Lucy's death being all their fault, but he never contradicts the claims about Mina and Jonathan. In fact, he constantly repeats the part about Jonathan being oversensitive. So? He agrees with Dracula that Jonathan and Mina being assaulted was okay? He agrees with the ableist notion that Renfield needed to be "put down". Maybe I just skimmed over a part.

Dracula forces Quincey to drink animal blood and stuff. Shows him the ropes. Quincey goes out and actually finds Arthur and Jack still grieving him. He does not reveal himself. I was glad that Arthur and Jack don't have their characters assassinated. They end up shooting a wolf and Dracula gets mad and Quincey is like "you literally had my body dragged away by wolves, they were acting in retribution, you don't get to kill them for it".

Blah blah I dunno, Quincey moves back to London. He tries out his cool vampire powers to harass some lower-class people. He bites a sex worker (super uncomfortable with this part, he says himself that he felt betrayed by the fact his vampiric paramour forced vampirism onto him without his consent while he was in the throws of passion, and he does it to someone else?) He meets Elrod's OC.

Bertrice Holmwood is a Mary Sue. Okay? She's a manic pixie dream girl, she's a strong independent woman that needs no man (except that she sorta blackmails Quincey into sleeping with her), and she doesn't feel like a real human being.

She's yet another hastily shoved-in plot device. She's Arthur's older sister by exactly one year and her whole deal is that she's the black sheep of the family because she's a girlboss. Ugh. She's less of a character and more of Elrod's vague idea of a cool woman.

"Black sheep", Arthur loves her! They're on good terms and they're very protective of one another. She's not ostracized at all. But here's the thing, if she always existed and she and Arthur had such a close relationship, why was she never mentioned in the original book? Now, I'm not gonna get mad that Bramothy didn't make Elrod's OC canon. I'm gonna get frustrated that Elrod so poorly shoved her in. If Arthur is not an only child, why did all the managing of his father's funeral fall to him? Why was she never present or mentioned in scenes pertaining to Arthur's grief? Because she's not... real. And it doesn't fit the original story for her to be real.

I would have vouched for her role in the story if she had been Jack's secret sister instead. Jack having a sibling that he doesn't really interact with during the course of Dracula is realistic because he has a job and he's not a noble. You could even make her Quincey's sister visiting from Texas upon receiving news of Quincey's death. But. Well. They're not Alabamian so the sex would be out of left field then /j.

She is told the events of the book and is like "I'm gonna kill VH for hurting my baby bro" and like. Fair. Honestly, I appreciate that the book calls out VH's manipulation methods instead of trying to twist it like VH was the secret evil all along and Dracula was the good guy. It seemed like that was how it was gonna play out in the beginning, but Quincey empathizes with VH while still criticizing his methods. It's a human take on VH. Sucks what Elrod did to Renfield, Mina, and Jonathan, though.

Bertrice hangs out with Quincey a lot, but my eyes glazed over for those parts bc of all the written-out lower-class accents. Despite her being rich, she hangs out in exclusively the slums of London apparently. It makes her less likeable honestly. Stop gentrifying the neighbourhood, Bertrice. But one scene I did read was when she took him to a fortune teller that used tarot cards to explain his whole situation. One of them was "you've been lied to" and from Quincey's later insistence that Lucy's death was none of their faults, I think he rightfully took it to mean that Dracula was lying? But he doesn't apply that logic to his interpretation of Mina and Jonathan's story, nor Renfield's death...

Quincey reaches out to Arthur and Arthur is a bit spooked.

Arthur: You're dead! You're a vampire! Begone! Quincey: I'm actually a good vampire. 'Just drink animal blood. Arthur: You're lying! Quincey: I'm not. Arthur: Oh, okay. It's good to have you back.

Quincey tries to talk to Van Helsing, but Van Helsing refuses to believe him. Jack on the other hand...

Jack, on the other side of a door: Quincey, is that you? Quincey: Yeah. Jack: If it is you, open this door. Quincey: Okay, but don't freak out. VH: DON'T LISTEN TO HIM HE'S A MONSTER. Quincey: *opens door* Hey. Jack: Ah, hey bud, good to see you again.

It's funny how easily Jack accepts that Quincey is alive and totally chill, especially with VH screaming at him that it's all lies. You would think that he'd at least be equally as unsure as Arthur. VH storms out I think, and Quincey explains to Jack everything-- that VH is probably just defensive bc if Quincey is a vampire and totally chill, that opens the door to the possibility VH was wrong about Lucy. But he restates numerous times that Lucy was dead, she died of blood loss, the Bloofer Lady was not Lucy because that vampire fed off of children, and there was no part of Lucy left to reason with.

VH apparently kidnapped Arthur and Bertrice. Why? I dunno, because he was paranoid about Quincey. But he cages them and that's just super weird. Quincey tries to remedy this by having Jack reason with VH. When that doesn't work, Quincey tries to reason with him with a *bit* of hypnotism. It doesn't work. VH shoots him several times in the chest and, assuming Quincey is dead, crosses himself and leaves.

Quincey isn't dead, he's fine.

Uh? The End? The Harkers never show up, so they're unable to defend themselves against Dracula's claims against them. It really frustrated me. And of course, Renfield couldn't defend himself, and Quincey only barely argues on his behalf before blindly believing Dracula. VH serving as an antagonist felt okay seeing as he's not vilified, he's just painted as a grieving, irrational old man. That's realistic. Except for his kidnapping of Arthur and Bertrice... which was just... so melodramatic.

Also just... so I mentioned that Bertrice and Quincey have sex and it was kind of coerced. I don't recall when this happened, it's really that pointless to the plot. So Bertrice springs it on Quincey that she knows he's a vampire, and in the high stress of that confrontation, she asks him to have sex with her and bite her. He does. Eh.

All in all, the book kind of reads like a very self-indulgent work of fanfiction. Whatever Elrod wished to put into the story, she put in with disregard to the actual events of the book she was basing her work off of. It honestly wasn't the worst Dracula fanfiction I'd ever read, though the victim-blaming was atrocious. I appreciate that Bertrice was a bit more than just a fuck-buddy for Quincey. Her protectiveness over Arthur is a bit of a character trait. I also like that the Suitors are still bros. The conversations between Jack and Arthur that Quincey listened in on felt like I was reading a better story for a bit, their friendship felt real.

#dracula #dracula daily #quincey morris #quincey p morris #count dracula #arthur holmwood #jack seward #john seward #van helsing #abraham van helsing #book recap #and?? review?#tw sa mention #I would never talk about an unpublished fanfic this way #seeing as I haven't ever mentioned the worst ones I've read so far #but she's a published book author- nothing is sacred

32 notes · View notes