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heabooknerd's review
2.0
THRALL was a unique read told through diary entries, tweets, chat messages and emails. While I really felt like I understood the "voice" of each character I also wanted more substance from them. The epistolary format isn't the best for getting deep dives into characters because you just don't see all their actions and thoughts.
Lucy and Mina are the established couple in THRALL and while they love each other they still have relationship hurdles to overcome. I liked that the reader gets to see that relationships are still work even after the “I love you's” are said. Arthur and Professor Van Helsing are the second couple and they meet through the investigation and are immediately attracted to each other. They're also a bit of an opposites attract with Arthur being young and tech savvy and Van Helsing being older and a more stuffy, professor type. I enjoyed Arthur and Van Helsing's relationship more because it was new and I love those first moments of discovery between a couple.
My favorite aspect was probably the spooky vibe that the story cultivated and I was really into the haunted overtones; that being said, the ending threw me for a loop because it wasn't the supernatural or creepy ending I expected based on the book up to that point. I felt like I got a bait and switch on the story and the ending left me really disappointed.
**Copy provided by A Novel Take PR for honest review**
Lucy and Mina are the established couple in THRALL and while they love each other they still have relationship hurdles to overcome. I liked that the reader gets to see that relationships are still work even after the “I love you's” are said. Arthur and Professor Van Helsing are the second couple and they meet through the investigation and are immediately attracted to each other. They're also a bit of an opposites attract with Arthur being young and tech savvy and Van Helsing being older and a more stuffy, professor type. I enjoyed Arthur and Van Helsing's relationship more because it was new and I love those first moments of discovery between a couple.
My favorite aspect was probably the spooky vibe that the story cultivated and I was really into the haunted overtones; that being said, the ending threw me for a loop because it wasn't the supernatural or creepy ending I expected based on the book up to that point. I felt like I got a bait and switch on the story and the ending left me really disappointed.
**Copy provided by A Novel Take PR for honest review**
eesh25's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 Stars
Thrall is a retelling of Dracula. There are four main characters. Mina and Lucy are a couple and together, they have a true crime podcast. Arthur is their friend as well as the guy who handles their social media. When Lucy's brother, Harker, suddenly goes missing—not responding to calls, texts or emails—the three reach out to Harker's professor, Van Helsing, asking him whether he's heard from Harker.
Before he went missing/off the grid, Harker was writing a dissertation and it involved a new dating app called Thrall. Arthur makes an account on Thrall trying to figure it out and hoping maybe it would give a clue as to what happened to Harker. And it leads them on a quest full of mystery and a possible serial killer.
The book is entirely in the format of emails, chats, texts, blog posts, tweets and more. And I wasn't a fan of it. It's not just because I prefer my books to be written in ordinary prose, because I've enjoyed epistolary novels before; it's about this book and story specifically. There were good things that came out of the format, yes, but for the most part, I think I would have liked the story more were the format different. In fact, I would like to reread the same story, just written the good ol' fashioned way.
That said, there are good things about it. My favourite thing is, undoubtedly, how well social media has been represented. Not just in the tweets-are-proper-length way but the way it shows how people interact on social media.
Lucy and Mina love reading and talking about true crime. That's what their podcast is about, after all. And there was an article tweeted to them which talked about how it wasn't right that women were taking interest in such things. There were also assholes who were offended any time they did anything that so much as hinted at the fact that they're together, people saying they didn't care what the two did as long as they didn't rub it in their face. Calling your girlfriend cute is apparently too much for people's delicate sensibilities.
What I'm saying is, this the kind of stuff that people really say on the internet and I loved that the authors did such a great job with it. It added authenticity to the novel.
But this is just one part of the book. Arthur and Van Helsing's relationship is another. I liked it and I liked them, individually and together. There were some really cute parts and some really hot ones. I loved the understanding they had of each other. But I wanted more. And by that I mean I wanted to read their story like a story, instead of chats and emails. I feel like I missed out on a great romance.
Another part of the book is the mystery. Harker's gone AWOL and Lucy, Mina, Arthur and Van Helsing are looking for him. They're trying to find clues as to what he was doing before and where he might have gone. It was interesting, the puzzles, and the authors did manage to create tension. But I didn't like how it ended. The answer to what happened to Harker didn't work for me. And not because it was bad, necessarily, but because it was disjointed from the rest of the book. I couldn't help but wonder what it had to do with the story we were reading. Answer is, I'm not sure.
Overall, this was a book trying to juggle multiple things at once and did a pretty good job of it. We got Lucy and Mina's relationship, their podcast, Arthur and Van Helsing's relationship, a good representation of social media and a decent mystery. But the resolution and format didn't work for me so I'm not if this is a book I'd recommend. If it sounds interesting to you, go for it.
Thrall is a retelling of Dracula. There are four main characters. Mina and Lucy are a couple and together, they have a true crime podcast. Arthur is their friend as well as the guy who handles their social media. When Lucy's brother, Harker, suddenly goes missing—not responding to calls, texts or emails—the three reach out to Harker's professor, Van Helsing, asking him whether he's heard from Harker.
Before he went missing/off the grid, Harker was writing a dissertation and it involved a new dating app called Thrall. Arthur makes an account on Thrall trying to figure it out and hoping maybe it would give a clue as to what happened to Harker. And it leads them on a quest full of mystery and a possible serial killer.
The book is entirely in the format of emails, chats, texts, blog posts, tweets and more. And I wasn't a fan of it. It's not just because I prefer my books to be written in ordinary prose, because I've enjoyed epistolary novels before; it's about this book and story specifically. There were good things that came out of the format, yes, but for the most part, I think I would have liked the story more were the format different. In fact, I would like to reread the same story, just written the good ol' fashioned way.
That said, there are good things about it. My favourite thing is, undoubtedly, how well social media has been represented. Not just in the tweets-are-proper-length way but the way it shows how people interact on social media.
Lucy and Mina love reading and talking about true crime. That's what their podcast is about, after all. And there was an article tweeted to them which talked about how it wasn't right that women were taking interest in such things. There were also assholes who were offended any time they did anything that so much as hinted at the fact that they're together, people saying they didn't care what the two did as long as they didn't rub it in their face. Calling your girlfriend cute is apparently too much for people's delicate sensibilities.
What I'm saying is, this the kind of stuff that people really say on the internet and I loved that the authors did such a great job with it. It added authenticity to the novel.
But this is just one part of the book. Arthur and Van Helsing's relationship is another. I liked it and I liked them, individually and together. There were some really cute parts and some really hot ones. I loved the understanding they had of each other. But I wanted more. And by that I mean I wanted to read their story like a story, instead of chats and emails. I feel like I missed out on a great romance.
Another part of the book is the mystery. Harker's gone AWOL and Lucy, Mina, Arthur and Van Helsing are looking for him. They're trying to find clues as to what he was doing before and where he might have gone. It was interesting, the puzzles, and the authors did manage to create tension. But I didn't like how it ended. The answer to what happened to Harker didn't work for me. And not because it was bad, necessarily, but because it was disjointed from the rest of the book. I couldn't help but wonder what it had to do with the story we were reading. Answer is, I'm not sure.
Overall, this was a book trying to juggle multiple things at once and did a pretty good job of it. We got Lucy and Mina's relationship, their podcast, Arthur and Van Helsing's relationship, a good representation of social media and a decent mystery. But the resolution and format didn't work for me so I'm not if this is a book I'd recommend. If it sounds interesting to you, go for it.
gillianw's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars rounded up
I was invested in this book right up until the big reveal. So I’m going to say it’s 4 stars for 80% and 3 stars for the final 20%. Possibly even less for just the reveal portion which felt like it belonged in a different novel. The creep factor had ratcheted up just before then and I was on tenterhooks waiting to see what would happen. And then...bleh.
Still, it was good while it lasted.
I was invested in this book right up until the big reveal. So I’m going to say it’s 4 stars for 80% and 3 stars for the final 20%. Possibly even less for just the reveal portion which felt like it belonged in a different novel. The creep factor had ratcheted up just before then and I was on tenterhooks waiting to see what would happen. And then...bleh.
Still, it was good while it lasted.
jackiehorne's review against another edition
3.0
Thumbs up for the experimental format (told entirely through tweets, phone chats, etc)
Thumbs up for the romance between Van and Arthur
Thumbs up for the DRACULA parallels and inversions
Thumbs halfway for the romance between Mina and Lucy; since it was already established, it didn't really have much of an arc
Thumbs down for the mystery plot. It just seemed so wrong for a sibling to be missing for several weeks and not go to the police about it. And then the actual cause of the missing was deeply unfulfilling
Thumbs up for the romance between Van and Arthur
Thumbs up for the DRACULA parallels and inversions
Thumbs halfway for the romance between Mina and Lucy; since it was already established, it didn't really have much of an arc
Thumbs down for the mystery plot. It just seemed so wrong for a sibling to be missing for several weeks and not go to the police about it. And then the actual cause of the missing was deeply unfulfilling
iam's review
4.0
3.5 stars
This was a very interesting and unique read!
Content warnings:
Thrall is about friends Mina, Lucy and Arthur along with new acquaintance Van. Mina and Lucy have been a couple for a while and best friends for even longer, and they cohost a true crime podcast with Arthur as their social media manager. When Lucy's brother suddenly disappears, they involve the brother's professor, August Van Helsing, and start looking for clues, which lead them to a dating app called Thrall.
What makes Thrall unique is the format. It's written entirely as social media interactions, emails, journal entries, text messages, forum threads, news articles, podcast transcripts, descriptions of images, and so on. I guess this falls under the epistolary format, and I at least am not very familiar with those, especially not to such an extreme and with such a wide variety of different formats.
I do enjoy the use of social media in books, and naturally Thrall had a lot of that, and it was so much fun!
It made the book very interesting to read and I did enjoy it for that, but it also had its drawbacks. I felt like the formats created a distance to the characters - I had a hard time getting a feel for them, and at times I felt almost like an observer of strangers' online interactions rather than a reader, which made me very uncomfortable.
It made me wish for there to be at least a little bit of typical book format in between.
The transions between scenes felt very aprupt. I often had a hard time telling how much times has passed or who was talking now or how it tied in with the story, but my main problem were the transistions between the.... moods and plots?
The book is both thriller/mystery and romance, and the switch between these felt very off to me. Especially the sex scenes felt out of place for me, though they were very creative as they were all online as well!
There was also a lot of social commentary about a lot of things: misogyny, racism, data privacy, fandom and the interactions and boundaries of creators and fans on social media, to name a few. I enjoyed that a lot.
I liked the characters, though as mentioned above, I always felt a little distanced from them through the format. Nevertheless I enjoyed reading about them, and especially Arthur's and Van Helsing's interactions and their banter were great to read and very refreshing as in I have never seen a dynamic quite like theirs before (and I'm not talking about the whole professor kink thing, which wasn't that big of a deal anyways - Van Helsing IS a professor, and Arthur is younger than him, but he is not his student or a student at all.)
The ending felt sort of anticlimatic. Many things seemed pointless in hindsight or were just never mentioned again after a certain point with felt weird.
The story definitely had a creep factor, and made me feel quite queasy at times but it was never unbearable, even for a scaredy cat like me ;)
Thrall is technically a retelling - this is were I admit I have never read Dracula and I'm not really familiar with the story (I watched that one movie with Hugh Jackman that is vaguely Dracula-ish I believe... but even that was years ago) so I can't judge it on that, aside from mentioning that this retelling doesn't have vampires.
Overall I enjoyed reading Thrall, and it was definitely an exciting new experience for me.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was a very interesting and unique read!
Content warnings:
Spoiler
sex on page, murder, threats, breach of online privacy, family member vanishing, trolls and jerks on the internetThrall is about friends Mina, Lucy and Arthur along with new acquaintance Van. Mina and Lucy have been a couple for a while and best friends for even longer, and they cohost a true crime podcast with Arthur as their social media manager. When Lucy's brother suddenly disappears, they involve the brother's professor, August Van Helsing, and start looking for clues, which lead them to a dating app called Thrall.
What makes Thrall unique is the format. It's written entirely as social media interactions, emails, journal entries, text messages, forum threads, news articles, podcast transcripts, descriptions of images, and so on. I guess this falls under the epistolary format, and I at least am not very familiar with those, especially not to such an extreme and with such a wide variety of different formats.
I do enjoy the use of social media in books, and naturally Thrall had a lot of that, and it was so much fun!
It made the book very interesting to read and I did enjoy it for that, but it also had its drawbacks. I felt like the formats created a distance to the characters - I had a hard time getting a feel for them, and at times I felt almost like an observer of strangers' online interactions rather than a reader, which made me very uncomfortable.
It made me wish for there to be at least a little bit of typical book format in between.
The transions between scenes felt very aprupt. I often had a hard time telling how much times has passed or who was talking now or how it tied in with the story, but my main problem were the transistions between the.... moods and plots?
The book is both thriller/mystery and romance, and the switch between these felt very off to me. Especially the sex scenes felt out of place for me, though they were very creative as they were all online as well!
There was also a lot of social commentary about a lot of things: misogyny, racism, data privacy, fandom and the interactions and boundaries of creators and fans on social media, to name a few. I enjoyed that a lot.
I liked the characters, though as mentioned above, I always felt a little distanced from them through the format. Nevertheless I enjoyed reading about them, and especially Arthur's and Van Helsing's interactions and their banter were great to read and very refreshing as in I have never seen a dynamic quite like theirs before (and I'm not talking about the whole professor kink thing, which wasn't that big of a deal anyways - Van Helsing IS a professor, and Arthur is younger than him, but he is not his student or a student at all.)
The ending felt sort of anticlimatic. Many things seemed pointless in hindsight or were just never mentioned again after a certain point with felt weird.
The story definitely had a creep factor, and made me feel quite queasy at times but it was never unbearable, even for a scaredy cat like me ;)
Thrall is technically a retelling - this is were I admit I have never read Dracula and I'm not really familiar with the story (I watched that one movie with Hugh Jackman that is vaguely Dracula-ish I believe... but even that was years ago) so I can't judge it on that, aside from mentioning that this retelling doesn't have vampires.
Overall I enjoyed reading Thrall, and it was definitely an exciting new experience for me.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
tetiana's review
3.0
I mean, this is a queered up to the gills modern retelling of “Dracula”. What’s not to like?
I read “Dracula” like a million years ago, so I think I missed all the easter eggs authors undoubtedly put in there, but even if your familiarity with the original is shaky at best (like mine) you’ll have fun.
Loved the social media used as a framing device for the narrative. I’m always on board with “found footage” type stories.
So yeah: likable characters and relationships, some background mystery, and a bit of meditation on the idea of a 21st century vampirism we all participate in every day.
I read “Dracula” like a million years ago, so I think I missed all the easter eggs authors undoubtedly put in there, but even if your familiarity with the original is shaky at best (like mine) you’ll have fun.
Loved the social media used as a framing device for the narrative. I’m always on board with “found footage” type stories.
So yeah: likable characters and relationships, some background mystery, and a bit of meditation on the idea of a 21st century vampirism we all participate in every day.
hobbithopeful's review
I got over halfway in this book, gave up, and skimmed over the rest of it. Very original idea, but honestly the execution left much to be desired, and I don't feel like the title is accurate to what this book is actually about. Over 95% of this book takes place over texting/internet messaging so it is a lot of dialogue chunks with very little reading rest. It is spouted as a queer dracula retelling, however centers more on side characters. In fact this book could easily have had a different title and different character names and it would have read better. I also find it very, very, VERY problematic that so much of the books content was surrounding race and issues etc. But the authors are both white? Like.....ehhhhh right? I don't think there were any sensitivity readers for this book at all (I feel like you can ALWAYS tell) Just the whole concept of white authors writing a book centered around so much issues that poc face just comes off as insincere. I absolutely love Roan Parrish's other book, and was so disappointed by the quality of writing in this. (Seriously y'all, I was having to push through to read as far as I did) The ending was also incredibly disapointing to me. Really everything about this book was.
In short:
Poor writing
Badly written spicy scenes
No chemistry between characters (as it all happens over texting/etc you don't feel like any of them really form a relationship)
Terrible Ending
Nothing to do with Dracula
Problematic featuring and centering of racial issues considering the authors own race (It comes off super weird in the book too)
If you managed to get through this book I applaud you.
In short:
Poor writing
Badly written spicy scenes
No chemistry between characters (as it all happens over texting/etc you don't feel like any of them really form a relationship)
Terrible Ending
Nothing to do with Dracula
Problematic featuring and centering of racial issues considering the authors own race (It comes off super weird in the book too)
If you managed to get through this book I applaud you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Racism and Sexism
Minor: Animal death