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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
dark
medium-paced
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Couldn’t do it. It was just so… boring. Said I’d give it 100 pages. Went a little further and nope. Still bored.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The gorgeous cover is the only good thing about this book. Very disappointed. Was hoping to read about the writing/development of Frankenstein, meanwhile we get made up romantic feelings of a very young Mary for another female character and other strange romantic vibes.
After reading Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron last Spring (about a fictional meeting between Jane Austen and Lord Byron), I wanted to follow up with another fictional account from Byron's life. Especially if it leads into exploring Mary Shelley's life, which of course this does.
Eekhout's job is to explore events from Shelley's life and speculate about how they may have influenced the creation of her masterpiece novel. She writes about the extended visit that Shelley (and her husband Percy and half-sister Claire) spent with Byron and Polidori in which Byron challenged the group to come up with their own ghost stories. But she also writes about Shelley's trip to Scotland four years earlier, where she stayed for a different extended visit with family friends and formed a close relationship with another teenaged girl, Isabella Baxter.
Eekhout threads these stories together with other details about Shelley to portray her as a profoundly lonely person in desperate need of an outlet for her emotions. An outlet that Byron unknowingly provided with his playful challenge.
But the book doesn't tie this together rationally and dispassionately. Eekhout and translator Laura Watkinson write poetically to completely immerse me not just in the story, but in all of what Shelley is feeling in all of her loneliness and rejection and her intense need to get that out of herself in the form of words. It's an amazing book.
Eekhout's job is to explore events from Shelley's life and speculate about how they may have influenced the creation of her masterpiece novel. She writes about the extended visit that Shelley (and her husband Percy and half-sister Claire) spent with Byron and Polidori in which Byron challenged the group to come up with their own ghost stories. But she also writes about Shelley's trip to Scotland four years earlier, where she stayed for a different extended visit with family friends and formed a close relationship with another teenaged girl, Isabella Baxter.
Eekhout threads these stories together with other details about Shelley to portray her as a profoundly lonely person in desperate need of an outlet for her emotions. An outlet that Byron unknowingly provided with his playful challenge.
But the book doesn't tie this together rationally and dispassionately. Eekhout and translator Laura Watkinson write poetically to completely immerse me not just in the story, but in all of what Shelley is feeling in all of her loneliness and rejection and her intense need to get that out of herself in the form of words. It's an amazing book.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes