60%
17.06.26Who doesn't love a psychopathic narrator with no redemption arc? Well, lots of readers if you go by the reviews. But a bad person does not make a bad novel - in fact, it's cleverly paced and the emphasis here is definitely on the fun. (Apart from when she killed a cat. Oh, yeah, and a couple of people too, but there's no excuse for killing a cat.)
21.05.26
Like the designs in the story, great idea, poorly executed.
09.10.24
I think people are getting the concept of an unreliable narrator mixed up with the concept of plot twists. Nothing that happened in this story (within a story within a story) was much of a surprise - information was just withheld and filtered by the narrator. Which made the story more engaging than a third-person omniscient narrator would have been, even if it was, overall, totally farfetched.
I really liked this, as long as I ignored the apparent lack of copy editing (continuity errors, misplaced Americanisms, grammatical mistakes that didn't seem to be related to the narrator's voice... why?! I've deducted points for being yanked out of immersion). Its intriguing premise developed into a thoughtful take on the nature of experience, memory, the media and potentially abusive relationships.
59%
20.02.21
Well, it was a confidently written reimagining of the relationship between three very interesting (real) people that got me checking their achievements on Wikipedia. The possible influences on the development of 'Dracula' were cleverly handled. It was also on the wrong side of pretentious and went on even after the main story had ended. And on. And on some more.
