Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Our Hideous Progeny

I have mixed feelings about this one. For one, I absolutely love classic retellings, especially if they’re sapphic and this one was a very interesting take on the original story of Frankenstein.
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.

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lily_marigold's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

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

5.0

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lunarmagi42's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Our Hideous Progeny tells the tale of a woman who is, quite frankly, trapped in a society that thinks she is "less than" simply due to the fact that she was born a woman. Worth less than a man, less intelligent than a man, less worthy of scientific acclaim than a man. Less monstrous than a man. Less angry than a man. None of these things are true and she disproves them one by one.

While the story takes some time getting into the whole "Frankenstein" aspect of the book, that time is well spent setting the stage for the fascinating tale to follow. We see how, despite being the mind more or less behind her husband Henry's scientific discoveries, Mary is only ever credited with "And many thanks to M Sutherland for the illustrations." We see how the people who should be her scientific peers look down on her for her gender. We also slowly learn of Mary's discovery of her great uncle, Victor Frankenstein, the Creature he created, and the story of that creation left behind in letters.

Mary's journey to creating her own Creature is fascinating and deeply frustrating, both for Mary herself and for the reader. Over and over she runs into the hurdle of needing a man for something, usually simply due to the fact that women are not allowed in many of the circles she needs to be in to continue her work. Due to the society she lives in, this is not simply a hurdle she can overcome, she must work with Henry and the loathsome Mr. Clarke to bring her discovery to life.

I thought the story was very well written and engaging as well as surprisingly touching at points, especially for a story with as much gore as this one has. Mary's relationship with Maisie is sweet and very natural feeling and her moments of introspection over the loss of her child a year prior are deeply touching. C.E. McGill uses very poignant and eloquent language in a way that feels smooth and nicely poetic to describe a rather gruesome thing: the creation of a Creature, stitched together from the sum of the parts of others.

Our Hideous Progeny is definitely worth a read if you like gothic horror about angry women fighting for their place in society and finding love and solace in an unexpected place. 4.5/5 Stars

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natashaleighton_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

C.E. McGill’s richly detailed and utterly compelling debut was a deliciously gothic and feminist exploration of ambition, obsession, betrayal and love that I couldn’t get enough of!

It’s set in 1851, at the height of the Victorian era’s fascination with all things dinosaur and follows Elizabeth (the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein) who (having spent the better part of her life being looked down on for being a woman interested in science and palaeontology) yearns to find scientific acclaim beyond the footnotes of other people’s research. But without any powerful connections or wealth, neither Mary or her husband stand a chance of ever succeeding.

Armed only with letters containing snippets of her great uncles’ past —of creating life from death (which ultimately led to his own), Mary decides to use what little of his research remains to take the scientific community by storm. And, with her husband Henry, attempt to bring life to a creature never before seen by human eyes.

But on the precipice of success, Mary begins to question the ethics and morality surrounding their creation and the love that she has developed for the creature.

I loved every second of this! It’s such an electrifyingly creative and wholly original take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and I genuinely couldn’t put it down.

The writing is lush and beautifully atmospheric, and as intricately woven as the stitches that adorn the eponymous ‘creature’ which definitely showcases the gothic/horror genre to perfection!

I was in absolute awe of just how immersive the descriptions were and loved that it really delves into the inequalities of the Victorian era and the classist, sexist and racist attitudes which were prevalent and still very much relevant today.

I adored Mary, who’s character takes inspiration from not one but three impressive women of the 19th C: Mary Shelley, Mary Anning (the self-taught palaeontologist who found the first Ichthyosaur fossil) and Mary Somerville (one of the first women admitted into the Royal Astronomical Society), and really enjoyed discovering just how much of their stories connected to our refreshingly bold and sharp-tongued protagonist—especially Mary Anning, who seemed to have to the most in common with our plesiosaur-obsessed MC.

With what we see of Mary’s childhood and isolated upbringing with her grandmother (a woman who seemed to despise Mary simply for existing) I couldn’t help but be endeared to her (and root for her to succeed.)

I was less enamoured of her husband (or any of the male characters aside from Mr. Jamsetjee who was such a sweetheart) though the realism and accuracy to the contemporary attitudes of the day were spot on and really highlighted how remarkably strong Mary (and others like her) had to be to persevere in such a harsh, discriminatory environments.

The pace was quite slow to begin however, I felt it definitely helped to build up that tense, anticipatory feeling that gothic fiction is known for—and by the half way point things really kicked into gear and ‘things’ got super interesting.

If you love dark, gothic-esque historical fiction, queer horror or Silvia Moreno-Garcia then you absolutely must check this out, it’s fantastic!

Also, a massive thank you to Izzie Ghaffari-Parker and Doubleday books for the wonderful proof.

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