Book Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Author: Oscar Wilde
Released: June 01st, 1890 (Paperback)
Trigger Warnings: Ableism, animal death (hunting scene), antisemitism, blood, death, drugs, fatphobia, misogyny, murder, racism, sexism, suicide
Rating: ★★★★★
Why Haven’t I Read This Before: I hadn’t heard of this until I was a younger adult, truthfully, but it was mostly in passing. I’ve heard of Oscar Wilde but now that I could, I wanted to check this out!

Description: Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray“. Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be — in other ages, perhaps”.

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Please keep in mind that this review contains spoilers for the entire book. Read with caution. If you click on “Read More”, it is under the assumption you either don’t care about spoilers or you’ve already read the book.

Book Review: Dracula by Bram Stroker

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Title: Dracula
Author: Bram Stroker
Released: May 26th, 1897 (Kindle)
Trigger Warnings: Abduction, character death, child death, fear, imprisonment, murder, paranormal creatures, trichotillomania (brief)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Why Haven’t I Read It Before: Because of the pop culture growing up, I assumed that I didn’t “need” to understand who Dracula was and why he was revered, mocked, parodied, remixed, and changed. But now I want to understand where the fear came from and why he’s a classic monster. I want to read about the father of vampires and learn why he’s survived centuries of retellings and why many are still strong with them.

Description: A junior solicitor travels to Transylvania to meet with an important client, the mysterious Count Dracula. Ignoring the dire warnings of local townsfolk, he allows himself to be seduced by the count’s courtly manners and erudite charm Too late, the solicitor realizes that he is a prisoner of Castle Dracula, his guards a trio of voluptuous young women with sharp teeth and a taste for blood.

Soon thereafter, the solicitor’s fiancée, Mina, visits a friend on the English coast. The town is in full speculation over a Russian ship run aground nearby, its crew missing, the dead body of its captain, crucifix in hand, lashed to the wheel. A giant dog was seen leaping from the deck before disappearing into the countryside. The ship’s cargo: fifty boxes of Transylvanian dirt. As the beautiful Mina will soon learn, Count Dracula has arrived.

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Please keep in mind that this review contains spoilers for the entire book. Read with caution. If you click on “Read More”, it is under the assumption you either don’t care about spoilers or you’ve already read the book.

Book Review: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

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Title: Jane Eyre
Author: Charlotte Brontë
Released: October 16th, 1847 (Paperback)
Series: N/A
Trigger Warnings: Ableism, blinding/eye trauma, death, ethnic slurs, fire, illness, mutilation, parental/guardian abuse, sexism, suicide
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Why Haven’t I Read This Before: Once again, my education in high school seemed to be cookie-cutter and the teachers didn’t want to really talk about more than they already were (my teachers were mostly coaches — I went to a Texas high school in the early 2000s). Frankly, I wasn’t sure if I would have picked it up because of how problematic it is but… It’s Gothic for a reason, right? So let’s give this a try with an adult lens.

Description: Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane’s natural independence and spirit — which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of the Byronic, brooding Mr. Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall’s terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice.

Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions — even if it means leaving the man she loves?

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Please keep in mind that this review contains spoilers for the entire book. Read with caution. If you click on “Read More”, it is under the assumption you either don’t care about spoilers or you’ve already read the book.

Book Review: Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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Title: Frankenstein
Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Released: January 01st, 1818 (Kindle)
Series: N/A
Trigger Warning: Attempted murder, child death, death, depression, islamphobia, murder, parental abandonment, xenophobia
Rating: ★★★★★
Why Haven’t I Read It Before: In truth, I didn’t think I could handle this. On top of it, I had a lot of misconceptions about the story itself until I finally sat down and accepted; accepted how I’m interested in horror and gothic. Still, I’m glad I sat down and read the original, considering the time and Mary’s struggles and history, I think I can handle the horror of everything that happens in this book.

Description: An origin story nearly as famous as the book itself: One dreary summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, amid discussions of galvanism and the occult and fireside readings from a collection of German ghost stories, Lord Byron proposed a game. Each of his guests — eighteen-year-old Mary Godwin and her future husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, among them — would try their hand at writing a tale of the supernatural. Unable at first to think of a plot, Mary was visited one sleepless night by the terrible vision of a “hideous phantasm of a man,” lurching to life with the application of some unknown, powerful force. The man responsible, a “pale student of unhallowed arts,” fled in horror from his creation, leaving it to return to the dead matter from which it had been born. But the monster did not die. It followed the man to his bedside, where it stood watching him with “yellow, watery, but speculative eyes” — eyes of one who thought, and felt.

The novel that Mary Shelley would go on to publish, the legend of Victor Frankenstein and his unholy creation, and their obsessive, murderous pursuit of each other from Switzerland to the Note Pole, has been the stuff of nightmares for nearly two centuries. A masterpiece of Romantic literature, it is also one of the most enduring horror stories ever written.

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Please keep in mind that this review contains spoilers for the entire book. Read with caution. If you click on “Read More”, it is under the assumption you either don’t care about spoilers or you’ve already read the book.