Brittany S. (chix96) reviewed on 10/20/2014 + 5 more book reviews

The Historian surprised me! I was pulled in by others' descriptions of it being a vampire novel that had not succumbed to high-school fantasy. And I must say, it was actually scary. At no point does Dracula ever stop being anything than completely terrifying.

I found the details in the book to be marvelously well-researched (or, I don't know enough about the tops to have detected errors). As a rehabilitated academic myself (biology), I loved the descriptions of research methods and visiting archives - all back in an era where a researcher must physically visit a library. There were other unexpectedly rich layers of details: life in Communist Hungary, the lunch and dinner spreads in Istanbul, and descriptions of medieval book-making.

My only criticism of the book is that it is only truly scary for about a 100 page swath. After that, the tension descends to a much lower level of a mystery novel. This might have been a good thing, since I read it every night. Either way, I couldn't put it down and I'm now passing it around to my friends.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details