This book was good! I liked it but didn’t love it. I definitely see potential in it and look forward to seeing what else the author does.

dnf @ 25%

just not a book that is for me once i started reading it, nothing against the author & or publisher. the book just was not for me but i know a lot would enjoy it!

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. I have tried other books by this author and I just don't seem to mesh with her writing. I was honestly just bored and I didn't care for any of the characters.

I hope others love this one.

The first half of this book is backstory, which at times was a bit to slog through. However the second half of the book is all action and made up for any boredom in the first half. Loved this book, and maybe I’ll finally read Dracula.

Vampires and this cover SOLD ME, and unfortunately that's what I get for judging a book by its cover.

I love Dracula, and I love reading different variations of it but this one was DRAGGING. It was so unnecessarily long, and the MC would not shut up about waiting to jump this girls bones who she literally just met. The plot twists were all obvious, I did like the twist at the end so I'll give it a star for that.

I feel like if 45% of this book was cut out, I would have loved it a lot more.

Thank you so much to netgalley and Del Ray for the eArc though!!

well that was disappointing.

incredibly slow-paced, unexciting characters, and writing that leaves much to be desired. three POVs are being juggled that could've been utilized much better, but instead they all drag on.

We all know the story of Dracula and his brides. But we don’t know the full story of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Undying is a gothic, sapphic fantasy romance. It’s a story of self discovery, betrayal, longing, and family secrets.

This was a beautiful, feminists retelling of Dracula. It felt truly gothic and mysterious, with some witty comedy. Thank you, Iris. Kiersten White did a wonderful job of holding true to the original story, while adding new characters and back story to Lucy. It’s filled with feminine rage and some gore. You can’t have an adult vampire novel without some gore.

Lucy Undying is told in multiple point-of-views. This style really helped tell Lucy’s story from her life before vampirism, her past vampire life, and present day. I was addicted every step of the way.

I am so sorry. I love dark gothic novels and retellings but this was just not it for me. The characters felt so one dimensional and tbh annoyed me so much. I dont think this retelling worked at all. I’m so sad because this kind of book is normally right up my alley. It wasn’t for me and that’s okay, I hope it finds its people

Thank you NetGalley and Del Rey for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

The premise of Lucy Undying is sooooo delicious but the execution is, at best, very much not for me. Which is kind of a shame, but you win some and lose some. I think the format was interesting and the bare bones of the book were good (the transcripts are fun!), but it’s been a long time since I was so annoyed with characters and the situations they get themselves into. I understand what White was going for, but after a point I just could not bring myself to care about Lucy or Mina or Iris. I didn’t really find this to be an epic and seductive gothic fantasy (which is why I wanted to read this!!!) as much as I thought it was just sort of… fanfiction that is based on takes I don’t particularly agree with. Which is not a bad thing, and sometimes these sorts of things can change your view on a piece of media, but this was not the case. I don’t know. The cover slaps but the whole thing is muddled and there was not a single point where I believed in the romance—the plot twist makes me question Lucy’s intentions and Iris becoming attached makes zero sense, but like most things I think YMMV. I know that this is an adult book, and I think it’s pretty clear it’s aimed at adults, but Lucy reads so young and immature it sort of becomes painful after a time (for a variety of reasons, so it’s not like it fails to make sense). Ah well. Better luck next time.

I've been locked into a vampire fixation ever since I read this book and I am oh so grateful!! I've actually never read Dracula before so I have no idea whether she's featured in the original text but I do know the Bram Stoker's Dracula film and retelling her story was a brilliant, beautiful idea. Lucy is perfection, smart, beautiful, fiery, and I loved being taken into her world.

I’m all for adding a modern flair to retellings, but unfortunately this one needed more time to bake. An entirely new recipe, if you will.

LUCY UNDYING is a Dracula retelling, focusing on the one character that most versions tend to kill off or retain as the sidekick: Lucy Westenra.

I found this books difficult to read, and had to force myself to continue through to the end. From the beginning, things like the names (Dick Cox, Albert Fallis) to the attempt at pointedly hip and painfully trendy dialogue made this all too easy to want to put down. It seems like the intention was tongue-in-cheek but that consistently falls short.

Many times it felt as though the text put the characters and their motivations on the backburner for the sake of keeping the plot moving; Lucy is supposed to be some sort of femme fatale, and Iris the same, capable of dismantling her wealthy family’s cult MLM while Lucy is bringing an entire war to a halt with just…a request? If this is so, why are they both at times so daft, unable to connect the most minute and obvious clues?

None of the characters’ motivations were consistent and their decisions didn’t make sense. For a book that was meant to be a retelling, the returning characters were nothing like their originals that they were based on except for names. I’m going to check Kiersten White’s other books and see if an original story provides me with a different experience.

Rating: 1/5.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I am forever obsessed with stories in the world of Dracula. I found this story to be a bit predictable, but it was still a fun read!

This was just alright. So many vampire books that came out this year and yet this one was fairly forgettable. I was left underwhelmed.

I read about 60% of this book, and I think it's been enough to give me enough to write a review of the book. I liked how short the chapters were, and I liked the overall vibe of the book (very atmospheric, I like haunted/sentient/old houses in books), and I also liked the dual timeline chapters. I just couldn't really connect with the characters, and I found the plot to be a bit too slow for me. The writing style was good, but it just wasn't for me. I would definitely consider going back to try again with this one in the future, though!

In Dracula, Lucy Westerna is more of a prop than a character. Much like the first girl in a horror movie who dies because she's had sex or was otherwise naughty, Lucy is the foil against which Mina's purity is compared, and of course since she's the "bad" one she dies. In Lucy Undying, we get Lucy's story of what happened as well as the aftermath in her undead life.

I stayed up until midnight to finish Lucy Undying. That's one of the highest compliments I can give a novel. The story progresses through three different points of view: Lucy's secret diary from 1890 detailing the original tale of her death from her perspective, Lucy now telling a therapist what happened to her after dying, and Iris, the scion of an MLM empire on the run from the inheritance she doesn't want. I thought all three were intriguing and, while the pacing was a bit slow in some areas, I felt like the story was engaging and consistently moving forward.

White's writing is as vivid and evocative as the incredible cover art for this book. She's brutal when necessary, languid and sexy without being lurid, and she does a great end-of-chapter cliffhanger. I laughed at a few of the witticisms and enjoyed that even the side characters had some sort of background or motivation: no one was sidelined the way Lucy was in the original story. Lucy Undying is told from a decidedly protective-feminist slant, which resolved some of the massive issues I've always had reading Dracula. I also appreciated the character development and growth Lucy experienced, interestingly long after she was killed.

I saw the big twist coming, but I wasn't upset about that at all and the last 25% of the book (after the big twist, which I would've expected closer to the end) was full of interesting surprises. I enjoyed Lucy Undying and highly recommend it, but not for the folk who hate fanfiction or can't get past the "that's not cannon in the original" mindset. It was a fun and interesting read with plenty of twists, a bit of sapphic romance, and smidge of gothic-style horror.

This book was good. I liked that it reminded me of Castlenova. I adore gothic fantasy novels so this one was right up my alley.

I won't be reading this. I've tried multiple times and haven't gotten into it. Thank you though for the opportunity. If I read it in the future I will come back and change this review.

DNF at about 33%. I LOVE Kiersten White, and thought Lucy's stories were fascinating, but Ivy was suuuuuper annoying and there was instalove and I just couldn't finish it. The pit falls of a dual POV - loved one, hated the other.

I normally really like Kiersten White, but I couldn't finish this one. While instalove isn't a trope I like, I can usually tolerate it. The instalove combined with the instafriend just really did not make this seem believable at all, I realize it sounds odd to say a vampire book isn't believable, but I am prepared to believe in the supernatural as long as the human behavior makes sense. That was not the case here.

I'm going to give it 4 stars because the storyline was intriguing and I think people with less of an aversion to the aforementioned trope will enjoy it. It was a DNF for me, which was disappointing because I was prepared to love it based on the beautiful cover alone.

This is a perfect book for people who enjoy taking classis stories and reimagining or extending the plot of the story. Lucy Undying imagines if Lucy was more of a main character and queer. The reflection backwards are some of the best plot points in the story, especially as it expands out potential brides through out the year. The modern day story, while interesting, doesn't mesh as well as I would have desired. It might have worked better as a seperate storyline, or a secondary book, rather than trying to mesh it all together in one. However, I did enjoy the romance element of it.