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A review by ladyelfriede
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
0.5
Dracula needed a Librarian. Too old to not wait around for the 21st century and watch anime and realize that the ideal candidate is NEET librarians trying to escape life.
Instead, he chooses an unwilling professor in the 20th century that just writes Dracula's own demise cause everyone now wants revenge on Dracula. 5 v 1? You brought teeth to a gun fight? REALLY?! 500 YEARS DOESN'T TELL YOU NOT TO BRING ANYTHING TO A FIGHT?!
SO MUCH FOR FEELING LIKE YOU'RE "MODERN", EH?!
Unclear if he's still alive or not at the end but at the end of the day, same with OG "Dracula".
Needless to say, after I got to the plot twist that the whole entire reason for the journals was basically a giant job application, I sped read to the end.
Not in a good way.
This book should have been cut down by at least 300 pages, for even the historian in me, felt like this was too much history for a fictional novel. Keyword "NOVEL". This is not a textbook to study Ottoman vs Wallachia and Bulgaria history, it's a MOFO novel.
Too much dry prose describing our scenery, so much archaic prose that could have been said eloquently, "I stared at the ceiling", and 10 LINES DESCRIBING THAT WE'RE STUCK IN A COFFIN?! Like, no. I get it, it's an art piece of a book, but that the fact that everything was so dryly executed, not understanding pacing (EVEN FOR A HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK) was just bad. This was published many years ago and her debut so I get it, but holy hell.
No.
Prose: Dry
Pace: Nonexistant
Plot: Good, but not executed well enough that we miss the point of some declarations of "surprise".
Vibe: Actually VERY good, because we get so much prose for thoughts and atmosphere, we get a good feel of the book and the reason why this is not flat out 1 star. +0.5
"Horror": For someone who cried watching "Alien" this was like, not scary. I mean a few moments of "oh shit" but nothing to keep me awake at night. Don't go in this for horror by any stretch. Much less vampires, it's just a glorified Dracula fanfic
THAT BLURB LIED
Characters: For being a historical character drama, besides the dad, Rossi, and mom, everyone was sorta 1 dimensional. Don't go in this for any deep psychoanalyzation of the human psyche
WB: TOO MUCH. It's historical fiction, so some things are true and some things aren't. Namely, vampires existing. Though, they gave WAY too much information of our surroundings that turned out to not be important anyway, and was just to set the vibe. Like...too much vibe, wb, and dry prose. Nah, I'm out. -5
If you LOVE talking about the Ottoman empire, history of Wallachia, and I mean, LOVEE, these subjects, you might like this book.
Everything else, HARD PASS