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Secrets in the Stacks

Lynn Cahoon

5.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Book

After an ominous Tarot reading, Sedona bookstore owner Rarity Cole must find a killer to keep her...

David McK (3728 KP) rated Dracula in Books

Jan 30, 2019 (Updated Aug 14, 2019)

Dracula

Bram Stoker, Ang Lee | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry

8.1

(46 Ratings)

Book Rating

I first read Dracula as part of a film and fiction course at University: read the book; watch the film. It is, of course, the most famous of all vampire stories.

Unlike the movie version, the story is told from the point of view of the various secondary characters (who are all writing in their diaries or memoirs): Dracula, himself, is never at the forefront. Rather, he is an ominous shadowy presence in the background throughout. This is actually quite effective: by disassociating the reader from the villain, Stoker manages to both convey the deadly mysteriousness of the Count, and side-steps the danger of the reader sympathizing too much with Dracula, while that character is also able to be abroad during the day-time; just not with the powers he has at night.

Finally, and unlike the film version which bears the same name, in the book Dracula is not given the same back-story: Mina, for instance, is never described as being his long-lost love! In this sense, the film is much more of a Gothic love-story than the original source material!

Kudos

Sarah (7800 KP) rated Dark Waters (2019) in Movies

Mar 4, 2020

Good, if a little drawn out

I recall watching a documentary on DuPont and Parkersberg a while back, but was really interested to see the dramatised version of how this all came about.

Overall this is a rather haunting and tense film, with a great score and performances especially from Mark Ruffalo. It has such a dark appearance and overtone, and this works really well. It all feels rather ominous. The story itself is hugely interesting, although I think there are parts in this that are way too drawn out. Virtually all of the family related scenes were entirely unnecessary and made the film a lot longer than it needed to be. They could have cut all of these out and it would've had no impact on the main story. Because of this lengthy run time, the film only just held my attention and purely because the story itself is fascinating. I mean how a company gets away with doing something like this is absolutely crazy.

However if they'd have cut a good half an hour out of this, I probably would've rated it a bit higher.