The first time I tackled it I gave up quickly--finding this a bore. The opinions of friends who have read this novel have been mixed. I know some that think it a great, literate read. Giving this a second try I can understand that. The descriptions of different locations from Amsterdam to Istanbul, from France to Greece and Romania are vivid and evocative; there's some great imagery in the novel. The author obviously did her research on these countries, and on the history and legend of Dracula.
But I still found this hard to get into on second try, with wide stretches I found tedious. I think the basic structure didn't help. This isn't just first person--it's first person inside first person. The main narrative for 650 pages is "as told to" by a girl's father, interspersed with quite a few letters. Although I appreciated the nod to Bram Stoker's Dracula in this structure, at times it wasn't transitioned well and not immediately clear which "I" was telling the story and I never felt the voices were distinct. I also found several points rather implausible--and I don't mean the supernatural aspects--such as all the fuss made about getting a copy of Dracula out of a library or it being dangerous to own when the book can be found in any bookstore. Or how a person could disappear and travel across international boundaries without documentation.
Then there's the unsatisfying ending. Another friend who was enjoying it up to the end told me she wanted to hurl the book against the wall when she found out exactly what it was Dracula wanted. While I wouldn't exactly say I felt the same, I would say the ending seemed pretty anti-climatic in more than one respect after several hundred pages.
