I read this short story in one sitting and was pleasantly surprised by how beautifully it was written. I have only read "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" from Stevenson so far, which I found extremely hard to read. Therefore I had not expected him to be able to write in the way that he wrote this story. It was fairly easy to read and still filled with a huge variety of English words. I think the vast amount of dialogue in this story makes it much easier to read. It reminded me a lot of "DRACULA" since it was written around the same time and is also a vampire story. I found the characters to be quite interesting and couldn't stop reading it. The vampire aspect is not too promininent in this story but that didn't bother me too much. At first, I was a bit unsure whether I disliked the romantic feelings that the protagonist felt for Olalla or not. The way in which his outburst of love is described made me feel it in such a bright way, that I couldn't help but find it fascinating. I find it a bit unfortunate that this story is rather unknown while "Jekyll & Hyde" is so popular because I enjoyed "Olalla" much better. It amazes me that this story was written that long ago because it didn't feel like I was reading something from the late 19th century at all. This story did definitely catch and entertain me for about two hours.

This is pretty much everything I want from a classic novella. There is poetic, but still understandable and on point, language, you feel like you're in another time and place when reading it and there is some strange humor to it. I also liked the mystery surrounding this place and the way the people were described by the protagonist, with a strange fascination for them, and by the doctor, who totally judges them. I normally would criticize the love at first sight trope, but his attraction felt fitting in this situation and with 55 pages, how much time is there to fall in love? I absolutely adored reading this :)