Reviews - Frankenstein | The StoryGraph

33.3k reviews for:

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

3.86 AVERAGE

rosewriter13's review against another edition

4.25

dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

lizzie2327's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Frankenstein has proved itself to be a timeless classic in every sense of the word. The central themes, ideas, and warnings continuously seem to be prevalent and topical to the issues we are facing in our modern times. When Victor waxed poetically about the plague scientific knowledge can turn into, I was thinking about billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeffery Bezos, and Bill Gates could stand to have one of their own inventions try to kill them and their friends and family. We right now are seeing the effects Victor was talking about, flying too close to the sun and trying to play god, the danger of knowledge. Frankenstein lacks the emotional forethought to understand humanity to its full potential. While he is creating this new life, he lacks a distinct understanding of what life means. He runs away in horror from the thing he created with his own two hands, akin to a mother turning her back on her own child. Disdain from the creator hits the hardest. The creature on the other hand, contains more humanity in him than Victor could ever hope to possess. While reading his perspective, I was feeling my heartstrings being tugged through the pages for this poor thing who was rejected at every turn while providing kindness to those who scorned him. If only those in the cottage had treated him differently, maybe the whole novel would have turned out different. Such such such a good book, and I found it to be richer and more enjoyable than I originally considered.

creme_bruhlee's review against another edition

5.0

Il fatto che gente come Mary Shelley abbia scritto così poco è un crimine. Un crimine.

the_scribbling_man's review against another edition

2.0

Dry, verbose, repetitious, hyperbolic melodrama. Vastly tell over show, with redundant set-up, hilariously convoluted narrative framing and badly drawn characters (save for the monster himself, ironically). The meeting on the mountain between creator and creation gives us the meat of the themes, the best of the dialogue and provokes the most empathy; if only the rest of the book was half as compelling!

In short, a reread that confirms my dislike was justified when I read it the first time. It's not as bad as I thought... it's considerably worse.