Grace

I think is a classic, it is beautifully written and the story, as simple as it is, is moving. The detail I liked the most is the reference of the green light, it is effortless ICONIC.

I think I am in the age of truly understanding and valuing the message told in this book, it talks about making your dreams come true, Gatsby worked hard to get there, only his means weren't honest and that's when he lost everything he truly cared for... the shallow things won't follow us to the grave, only the most important ones: love, friendship, people we left a positive mark on.

You see, Gatsby had his house filled with people every night attending his parties, but Nick struggled to find people willing to attend Jay's funeral in the end, and that tells us that you can be surrounded by people but that doesn't make you less lonely.

I watched the movie a long time ago and don't remember much of it except for the green light and the final scene. I will have to re-watch it and have a more solid opinion on whether the movie did justice to the book or not, as well as if they kept some details in the book that are more of a performance and less of quotes.

I enjoyed the book, it is fast-paced, nostalgic at times and I think it is the first book I've read that is written by a man that has romance in it, of course the genre is tragedy but still... it brings a nice POV.

I was postponing this book for far too long, that I regret it. It was so good, much better than I thought it would be.

Maybe I would have liked more world-building, to me it was lacking, but the story was so good and the writing... chef's kiss, that it didn't matter that much to me.

Yes it felt like Beauty and the Beast was a major inspiration for this book, at times there were parallelisms, but I think SJM explored the curse with a very interesting twist to it, and how it all unraveled was beautifully executed.

Like many, I too had my doubts in the beginning, like it didn't make much sense, but I knew there had to be more to it and when it happened I really enjoyed it.

Now I'm off to the second book because I need a follow-up!

This book is a classic. Having said that, it is important to keep in mind the following:

-Ideas put in the book are hardly compatible with today's views (religiously, familiar, even in gender matters)

-Pacing and events considered important back then may be boring or irrelevant today

-Writing style is different from modern writing

All of the above may be obvious to some but I wanted to put them as a reminder for all who read this review.

Now, even considering the points above, and having read Jules Verne, who is contemporary of Bram (yeah, different genres but still gives an idea of what was considered interesting back in late 1800s), to me this book was ok, boring at times and very entertaining at others.

I wish it wasn't as repetitive, and the foreshadowing was quite obvious (like I was screaming "Lucy is turned!", "Mina is targeted!", "He hypnotized them!") By the time the characters deducted what was happening my reaction was like "you don't saaaaay! What gave it away, like the last 50 pages or so?" Especially since they were supposed to be documenting and sharing everything around half the book forward, so they were supposed to be on the same page at all times...

I think the scene that just kept my eyes rolling was when Jonathan saw Mina paler by the day, weaker... and his deduction was that her state was due to her affliction for not being included in the men's conversation instead of what was obvious -she was attacked by Dracula... like come on... really dude?

The pacing was very slow as well, and not to mention the dialogues with some locals or seamen with weird accents that just made the whole thing completely hard to understand, let alone to follow.

So overall I rate it with 🌟🌟🌟 because it is not as bad, I still wanted to know what was going to happen and how they were going to end it all, even if at times I lost interest and will to go on. I'm glad I got through it, though, I think it was worth it, just maybe not a re-read for me.