Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was excited to read this book, I had only recently discovered that Mary and Percy Shelley were married and I was interested in learning more of her story. It was informative, although large parts of it are fiction. It provides backstory into the fellow writers Mary surrounded herself with, but this book is mostly about Mary’s inspiration for Frankenstein. It changes between two settings and times, Geneva, when Mary is 18, and Dundee, when Mary is 14. A lot of Mary’s inspiration centres around a very creepy Mr Booth, who paid a lot of attention to a 14 year old Mary and her close friend Isabella. Mr Booth is married to Isabella’s older sister, Margaret, who is permanently disabled after she “fell down the stairs” of their house. I think you can tell what happened there. Spoiler - the older sisters dies of a sudden “infection” - she had been completely fine the week prior - and he ends up marrying the younger daughter. Mary feels disturbed by him, and hazy memories of him, and tries to warn her family, but they are all certain he is a good man who treated Margaret well and will treat Isabella well. Spoiler over - Going into the book I didn’t expect Mr Booth to be such a central character to the story, and it definitely impacted how I viewed the book. I enjoyed the parts in Geneva, even though Claire and Percy were getting on my nerves A LOT (they were having an affair, not a spoiler, it is made clear from the very start as Mary knows about it), but as the story progressed many of the parts in Dundee became uncomfortable to read about. Not a book I would reread or necessarily recommend unless someone was particularly interested in Mary Shelley, but a well written book that I wanted to finish.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Gaslighting
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse, Child death, Drug use, Sexual assault
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
I was pleasantly surprised by this! I think the going back and forth can be a bit confusing at times, and when young Mary goes off to stay in Scotland and meets a man who will join the legion of other monstrous men who will inspire her monster, because the story is told through a child's eyes, I lose a bit of clarity about what she is actually seeing. Is something sinister going on? Was someone murdered? Was someone assaulted? Obviously there are WAY TOO MANY YOUNG GIRLS BEING ENGAGED OR MARRIED OFF OR GETTING IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH ADULT MEN (a sign of the times, but I can still cringe reading about them, as I think Mary does to some extent—though not where it pertains to her or her younger sister, whom it's not clear that she sees as a victimized girl being pressured to and convinced by two grown men that she can freely be their plaything and disregard everything society will say about her< for participating in this farce, but rather as a flighty, annoying presence pulling Percy away from Mary).
Her loneliness in her marriage and her grief over her lost child and fear for the one she's raising are the strongest emotions and those form the core of this book, the idea of grasping a child back from death, at being able to keep them breathing, keep them whole—the dream of keeping a mother alive if only to know her, to know her touch, her voice, to know consciously that you were not left motherless in this world. I think all of these feelings are ones that are imbued in Frankenstein and I thought the translator did an exceptional job rendering them in clear, vivid English.
Her loneliness in her marriage and her grief over her lost child and fear for the one she's raising are the strongest emotions and those form the core of this book, the idea of grasping a child back from death, at being able to keep them breathing, keep them whole—the dream of keeping a mother alive if only to know her, to know her touch, her voice, to know consciously that you were not left motherless in this world. I think all of these feelings are ones that are imbued in Frankenstein and I thought the translator did an exceptional job rendering them in clear, vivid English.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated