A boring tale of a man learning that he does in fact, have to suffer the consequences of his actions.

Can you believe I never knew the story of Dracula until now? Made it 27 years before I learned more than "this is a story about a vampire".

This book had such a strong start. I loved the time we spent with Harker in Dracula's castle, seeing him slowly be consumed by the madness of knowing death was imminent. I'd have loved a full book about this!

Unfortunately, once we left the castle and introduced the other characters (who I do love by the way), the plot seemed to get a bit lost. Too much time was spent on rather unimportant details in comparison to the end, which was short and lacking.

I did enjoy the book and love that it's one of the classics that lead to such a vast collection of vampire stories today.

Three Holidays and a Wedding had something great going for it, but the execution was not there. I was drawn in by the idea of three of the biggest religious holidays happening concurrently with the backdrop of a hallmark movie type setting. In fact, I think the handling of the holiday festivities was one of the things handled well. We experienced traditions from Christmas, Hanukkah, and Ramadan with pretty equal emphasis placed on each. There was no bashing of one another's holidays and all of the characters truly embraced each other's cultures with zero hesitation.

I also loved the way these characters interacted with each other. Sure it was cheesy and over the top, but that's what we signed up for reading a hallmark-esque holiday romance. The relationships felt real and I genuinely enjoyed getting to know each one.

Unfortunately, that is where the praise stops. Any conflict in this book was only present when necessary. Multiple times a conflict would be introduced just for it to go away entirely until it became important to the plot again. Speaking of the plot, I was disappointed that a major growth moment for one of the characters was taken away by another character telling the readers what happened to them. It felt out of place and, frankly, unfair to that character.

The biggest issue is that the readers are treated like they are stupid. The plot of A Christmas Carol was told over and over and over again as if we couldn't be smart enough to remember the details the first time. A character will be introduced and then in the next chapter they'll be introduced again as if we're meeting them for the first time.

I think what bothered me most though is that we were not trusted to either come with prior knowledge about Ramadan and Hanukkah, or given the ability to research them as we read. This book is clearly written for a white Christian crowd because anything related to Christmas is stated as if everyone should know what is being discussed. But anything related to Hanukkah, Ramadan or being Indian is mentioned with a little aside about what that thing is. Like imagine if I said, "over there you see a child with a ball, a spherical object that is often tossed or rolled." It's exhausting and places no faith in the readers.

That being said, I think this book is on par with many cheesy hallmark-esque romances. The inclusivity is great and overall the book is enjoyable if you go in with proper expectations.