Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - Frankissstein

Started our great, drifted halfway and lost me completely at the end. Very strange, very funny, very beautifully written. Looking forward to reading Jeanette’s other work as I love the writing style, just not sure this story gave me enough in the end

Content Warnings

basil_touche's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The Mary Shelley segments were the best parts of the book. It felt like a lot of research went into Shelley's history and the prose felt of the period. The Bedlam parts I didn't quite get though.

However, the modern parts, while they could be philosophical at times, treated the trans protaganist, Ry, abysmally. The

sexual assult

was gratuitous and did nothing to the narrative. It's just there to tell you how "miserable" being trans is. Having a trans protaganist in a reimagining of Frankenstein should be a match made in heaven, touching on themes of what humans can change of themselves, seeing ourselves in the creature in how he is viewed in ways that he's not, but here it just feels tacked on and not respectfully explored. Ry doesn't feel likely a fully realised character (the rest of the cast doesn't fare too well either) and is deadnamed and fetishised constantly. Doesn't help that it didn't keep my attention well either.

I can appreciate the novel's exploration of AI and what makes us human, but I feel like I can find a better book that covers the topic without the transphobia.

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siebensommer's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

‘you got a lot of not yets in your life‘ […]. she‘s right. i am liminal, cussing, in between, emerging, undecided, transitional, experimental, a start-up - or is it an upstart?

when people part, they usually hate each other, or one hates the other. - that is the conventional way. there are other ways. […] if we cannot keep this love, there is place in me that has been changed by this love and i will honour it - think of it as a kind of place of worship if you like. and sometimes, boarding a plane or waking up or walking down a street or taking a shower,… i will recall that place and never regret the time i spent there.

life, we imagine, is familiar enough until we begin to tell it to another. then, observe the wonder on their faces.

women blame each other all the time, it is a trick men play on us.

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balfies's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

This was weird. Like, properly twisted. Winterson is one of my favourite writers, so I always trust where she takes me. This was....

A modern retelling of Frankenstein wearing a coat made of transhuman, transgender, AI, sexbot feminist body horror sci-fi interleafed with Mary Shelley's own experiences of writing Frankenstein.

If you want a glimmer of queer macabre literary satire on what it means to be human and have a body, give it a go.

Personally, it's not my fave from old Jeanie baby, reminds me a bit of Ian McEwan's slightly trite retelling of Hamlet from the perspective of a foetus, though admittedly there is more craft in Frankissstein than there was in Nutshell.

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the_tridentarii's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

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rad_reads_123's review

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challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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waterbear0821's review

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

It’s an interesting thought exercise, overlaying Frankenstein on modern culture, medicine, and technology. I get why this book is good. It gave me the brain-tingling feelings of good literature, where I can feel myself thinking about things in a new way. I enjoyed the shifting, melding perspectives, the recurring, regenerative, reimagined themes. The general science fiction horror structure and style. But also why are the characters in literature so blank and deplorable? Bah. Also, big CW vibes. Having a trans main character doesn’t mean you have to include hate crimes.

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halloweenrose's review

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dark reflective sad

Loveable characters? No

2.75

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