In iDrakula, the story of Dracula is translated into contemporary times. The letters and diary entries have been transformed into texts and emails.
The cast of characters is relatively smaller. Mina is madly in love with Johnathan Harker and has a crazy party girl of a best friend: Lucy. Lucy’s ex boyfriend has been committed the psychiatric hospital (you guessed it! Reinfield) and during on of their visits they meet the young and handsome medical student Abraham Van Helsing. Other characters are mentioned vaguely, more as name drops to reference the original than to flesh out any form of plot.
For a novel called iDrakula there is very little Dracula in it. For the majority of the novel, the characters are scrambling to find a reason why Lucy has fallen ill, assuming that it is a rare disease that she may have contracted from Reinfield. The novel 180s later one when they decide that Count (who is clearly a vampire) is responsible.
Though the style makes sense in theory, it becomes the major draw back of the novel. Since it would go against form to send long detailed text messages, the reader is left with little to no detail on what is going on in the characters lives. Think of it this way, if you were walking down the street and found someones phone and started reading their text messages, you would only barely get a grasp of what’s going on in their lives. To follow the narrative, it helps to be familiar with the original text, but iDrakula eventually abandons even that, leaving its readers stranded in a desert of confusion.
iDrakula is the type of novel that you are either going to love or to hate. There is no in between. If you’re an adaptation purist, and don’t like your favourite narratives touched, then I would recommend you skip this one. That being said, if you’d like to read something a little off the beaten track, then pick this up. It’s a real quick mindless read.
