Review 526: Dracula

Dracula by Bram Stoker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finished reading this on Halloween, in time to close out October with a spooky read. Generally, I do not like horror books and Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. But if one was to read a frightful book that is a good season if a reason was needed.

I’ve been exposed to many tales of vampires, mostly on television or movies. I don’t find them horrifying, at least what I’ve seen so far. Since this book is the original I couldn’t be certain this would be frightening, but honestly it wasn’t. It had all the familiar aspects already known to me. I do suspect this might have been somewhat horrifying to the people of the late 1800s, as they didn’t have so much horror media back in those days. One does tend to get desensitized to some extent.

The story itself I found well done, better than I expected for the age of the book. It was told mainly by diary entries from the main characters, along with some letters. There were hints of things that a modern reader one knows the meaning ahead of time. Had the feeling a bit of knowing an inside joke.

I felt the tension was adeptly written and overall, a book well worth the time to read.

Review 454: Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners

Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners by Gretchen Anthony
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I thought this would be a holiday related book, but it wasn't really. Instead we have a young lesbian couple about to have their first child. The mother, Violet, of the pregnant woman, Cersie, is a control freak. Cersie and Barb delay telling Violet of the pregnancy in order to not overshadow the retirement party for her father. So during a speech Violet hears of the baby and outright faints. In fainting she crashes and into things and ends up with a serious concussion.

Being a control freak and now having neurological issues is the set up for this book, which tries to be so humorous.  I think it was outrageous at times, but I hardly laughed. 

The only Christmas related thing was, well the main event the book started with was just before the holidays. And there is a Christmas letter that Violet writes every year which is peppered throughout the book to show history of their family.  

The book was okay, maybe some people would enjoy the humor more than I did. Perhaps this type of humor works better on screen, I don't know. I found it meh.

Review 452: The Christmas Hirelings

The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Short Christmas related read.

A novella for the holidays. This is a classic, published originally in 1894 taking place in England. Sir John Penlyon decides that this Christmas some children should be around his lonely huge manor house. So a friend brings three children that were hired to have Christmas for a fortnight on the estate. 

Sir John Penlyon had casted his only daughter out to never accept her as his daughter and definitely not give her any money. She had the audacity to elope and marry beneath her station, which her father would not forgive. Thus, this many years later he is an old man missing children at Christmas.

His friend then brings three children in for the holiday. The youngest which was nicknamed Poppet is so smart and advanced for her young years of four and Sir John and her grow very close in no time. All the children enjoy their time, and gifts at the estate. They go out one day a few days after Christmas to enjoy and play in the snow. The next day Poppet had developed a cold. It gets worse, then even worse, to where they must call in the mother. Of course, the mother is the daughter that was cast out.  At this point Poppet was starting to recover, with her mother there, so Sir John leaves for London for a while. He still does not want to see his daughter, and realized by this point who the children were.