4.25 stars! I really enjoyed this! The original Carmilla was a huge letdown for me, both in terms of being lauded as 'the first queer vampire story' and just as a story on its own. I don't think it really had any queer undertones at all and the ending fell completely flat for me. This retelling took all of the potential the original Carmilla had and expanded on it beautifully; it was pretty much everything I wanted from it. A heartbreaking tale of queer love in a time when it was seen as an abomination. The parallels between being gay and being a vampire were obvious but still well done. I will say this one also suffered from being too short. 70% of the book was just them growing closer and it moved quite slowly just for the action and violence to come out of nowhere at the very end. It felt very rushed even if I did still enjoy it. I vastly prefer the ending to this one than the original Carmilla, though I did feel so sad for Laura's dad. He really got fucked over and he didn't do anything wrong. Still, a very good time!