Every time I read a novel I’ve read and taught many times before, I’m caught off guard by how quickly I become absorbed in the story. Maybe this time Jane and Rochester will get through their marriage ceremony before the strangers in the churchyard can stop them. Or maybe Van Helsing’s telegram won’t go astray, and Seward will save Lucy before Dracula turns her into a vampire. I know better. But I can’t fully dispel that feeling of excitement and anxiety, that adrenalin rush as I read. I think this is why I like nineteenth-century novels especially: their plots are built to keep readers on edge to the very last chapter. What I’m addicted to, what takes me out of myself as a reader, is the excitement, the twists and turns, of plot.
--Professor Kristin Samuelian, George Mason English