Reviews - Mary | The StoryGraph

405 reviews for:

Mary

Anne Eekhout

3.49 AVERAGE

betty4000's review against another edition

4.0

mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

soletka's review against another edition

2.0

challenging dark 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: Complicated

Another one in the modern trend of re/discovering and presenting the forgotten female authoresses and other impactful figures from the past. And, I am sorry to say, a disappointment for me. Mary Shelley, the authoress of Frankenstein, definitely is an interesting person, given her works, marriage to Percy Bysshe Shelley, hardships in life and that independence she had both in her mind and the way of living her life. But here the authoress Anne Eekhout somehow limites her to her (not sure how real) bisexual experience in her youth, from where the eerie Frankenstein story should start to form. As if sexuality was the ruling force to drive someone’s life.
Eerie, dreamy, sensual, feverish...this novel is all that and I should be fine if this was a part of Mary Shelley’s life. But here it is all of her life, and I simply can not see that this intelligent woman would live her life as a feverish dream.

heyfeyrey's review against another edition

1.0

I can forgive a lot, but I can't forgive BORING.

I wanted to like this so badly - Mary Shelley, creepy Gothic shit, sapphic romance. Too bad it wasn't really about any of that.

Mary Shelley - a woman so fucking freaky, she had sex on her mother's grave - is just so sad. All the time. No matter if it's 1812 or 1816, she's just so very sad and passive and dull.

Gothic shit? I mean, they eat a lot of fucking soup and Johnny (whose age is never specified, but he's supposed to be a child) carries a goddamn fish head all over the place. Soup and fish heads.

Sapphic romance? Only in Mary's head.

This is a woman who RAN AWAY with a married man to have ORGIES IN SWITZERLAND with her husband, her sister in law, and Lord Byron. People were actually setting up telescopes to try to peep in on the freaky action!

NOT IN THIS BOOK THOUGH.

Instead of orgies, we just get Mary. Being sad. All the fucking time. She's just so goddamn sad about everything.

Boring.