Scan barcode
aplpaca's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Sexism, Racism, and Child death
Moderate: Homophobia
hmatt's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Sexism, Animal death, Grief, Blood, and Body horror
Moderate: Classism, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Death of parent
areen's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.5
Graphic: Sexism and Misogyny
Moderate: Medical content
therebeckening's review against another edition
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Gore, Animal cruelty, and Sexism
Moderate: Xenophobia, Violence, Chronic illness, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Toxic relationship, and Child death
Minor: Lesbophobia and Miscarriage
Gambling, financial abuse,milesjmoran's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Grief, Medical content, Animal death, Medical trauma, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Racism, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexism, and Pregnancy
maddiereadswords's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Classism, Animal death, Child death, Misogyny, and Sexism
skywhales's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
this came on the heels of the first book i dnfed in quite a while (which i won't review since i don't usually review books i dnf. principle of the thing or whatever) and so maybe i'm just spoiled by this book not being That book. but also ugh i loved this
this has gotta be one of my favorite frankenstein adaptations (if this counts as that). it takes a definitively unique spin on the whole "victorian scientist creating life" premise and delves deeper into the real life scientific societies of england at the time, which was really enjoyable to see. and god, i LOVED the creature. we need more frankendinosaurs right now immediately. charming, exciting and fun nearly all the way through.
i have this funny thought that these characters could have easily been in a less well written book and would have been a total mess. but they weren't and i'm very happy about that. it took me a little while to fully come around to mary since i am a little tired of one person automatically being the only morally upstanding person in the room at a time where a lot of backwards opinions were commonplace. but i found i could relate to her anger with the fucked up practices of her community, and yes, i continue to adore women of science. i also like that they specified her love for her child was different than her love for the creature and shot down the idea that she was basically using it to replace her kid because if they had compared the creature to her daughter i would have cringed SO hard. honestly i feel like the author did a good job writing a character who isn't really typically motherly and wants to exist as a person outside of that. and while losing her child is always going to affect her, there was a lot going on with her that didn't have anything to do with that.
maisie was so sweetiepie...the sort of character i'm so glad was allowed to be a love interest. she's allowed to be less physically strong and be chronically ill but at the same time she's so full of life and perky and multifaceted and lovely...also sapphic stories where the love interest is the more feminine one always make me jump up in the air for joy. though i know it's victorian times and there's a base standard of femininity for both of them but you get what i am saying. you understand. henry was AUGH! it's so crazy because like. most of the time when a character has a crappy husband it kind of smacks you over the head with it but henry was maybe one of the most realistically flawed of these kinds of characters i've seen and it legitimately took me by surprise. a lot of his banter with mary was genuinely sweet! i could genuinely see that at one time there was love there! and there still was and still might be but those flaws begin to become less and less charming as mary becomes more and more disillusioned. he also got a lot worse whenever clarke entered the picture which i also appreciated even as it pissed me off because it's true that a lot of men who are otherwise somewhat decent people can easily go downhill when surrounded by an echo chamber of way worse friends. speaking of clarke i wanted to shred him into little bits so that characterization did its job.
if i had a qualm with the book i'd say that it does -sometimes- seem to kind of reinforce the idea that men are the ones thinking of Logic and Facts and women are the ones guided by Emotions. a lot of choices mary made were spur of the moment emotional ones that ended up just making everything worse but also i'm realizing even as i write this that it makes me sound like a major asshole. maybe i'm just too used to baru-type characters who make awful decisions in a different way. and overall i did understand her anger in most of the situations she found herself in. also i guess henry's emotions get the better of him a lot.
honestly a really lovely book. full of things i enjoy that i haven't seen enough of. and a couple quotes i liked so much i wanted to take a picture of them (because this book is also not my book it belongs to the library).
Graphic: Child death, Sexism, and Racism
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual harassment, Animal death, and Homophobia
n0elle's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Now, while I do know the author tried hard to make it appear historically correct, I found it absolutely exhausting to read hundreds of pages of men dictating the protagonist’s life, telling her what she can and can’t do, how she should behave, what (little) she’s worth.
I’m all for women in STEM, driven by ambition and scientific ideas that lead through breakthroughs. BUT if her ideas and success are always overshadowed by a man or even taken by a man, while she just sits idly by.. that’s infuriating, historically correct but still infuriating. And while the main character did get mad about these things, she always stayed quiet. In the rare moments she didn’t, she was belittled and reprimanded so much, I felt the shame of being a woman bleed through the pages.
Maybe the writing was just too good and too real and it made me feel so many emotions, some of which I could have gone without.
Graphic: Animal death, Sexual harassment, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Violence, Gore, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Death, Grief, Animal cruelty, Blood, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Body horror, Bullying, Chronic illness, Sexism, Classism, Death of parent, Misogyny, Racism, and Terminal illness
random19379's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Body horror, Classism, Sexism, Miscarriage, and Racism
_teoeo's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I loved every page of this book. It truly is a little masterpiece! It's so full of feminism and science and history and love and betrayal. Oh and Mary and Masie, they are my favorites! I wish I had annotated it but guess I'll have to read it a second time now!
Graphic: Animal death, Misogyny, Blood, Sexism, Chronic illness, Grief, and Gun violence
Moderate: Child death
Minor: Death of parent