Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Frankissstein

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

71 reviews

marissab's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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obliiviium's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

"My closest conversations are bad translations."

While I have thoroughly enjoyed Winterson's The Stone Gods (I gave it 5 stars, as it managed to get me out of a years-long book slump), this one did not quite hit the mark for me. However, this one quote speaks to me on a personal level. Rarely do I read something that leaves me speechless. But there was another such moment: a short story hidden amongst the pages. A story about the relationship of a robot and a man.
However, I was not a fan of Ry's storyline. The characters did not sit well with me, and neither did the plot (Mary Shelley's storyline, on the other hand, I found great). Moreover, at times I was unable to follow the plot properly and I found myself rereading passages.
All in all, I would recommend this book for people who ponder about AI. For me, it's a 3/5, but I do think that the aforementioned quote and short story will stick with me for some time.

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thereadingscorpios's review against another edition

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1.0

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schnanko's review

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dark emotional funny reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

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francesca_o's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

Interesting concepts and mix of characters and timelines. It was a little difficult to track as an audiobook.

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elenaluisa's review

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challenging fast-paced

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

Had to read it for class but found it very difficult because of the transphobia. Would not recommend.

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jo_kingston's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

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

2.0

There were some good bits in this book, some of the turns of phrase were beautiful, such as the opening sentence “Reality is water soluble”, and I did like the bits with Mary Shelley, but overall, I don’t know, it was just too much (I know a crude phrase for a book review but in this case it feels accurate) too much up its own ****. But to summarise, the book jumps between Mary Shelley’s life and the present day where a young trans doctor meets Victor Stein, who has some mad scientist plans of his own.

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ellenigrace's review

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2.0

I don't think I really understood this book. I also agree with another reviewer who pointed out that the trans character is treated poorly, especially with regard to repeated misgendering.

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neridah's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

The characters were interesting, but this didn't overall grab me

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eneko's review

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1.0

This book is transphobic. I don’t care if you are one letter in the LGBT alphabet soup, being a cis woman means you should be more careful and empathetic when writing a trans story. Unfortunately, this author has done more harm than good here. I can see perhaps maybe she wanted to include a trans narrative because we don’t get included much, but at this stage it’s better left to actually trans people. The sexual assault had no effect on the rest of the narrative or the characters and I was left asking what the actual fuck, why did you include that trauma and not deal with it? Ry was deadnamed and misgendered constantly, and it was never reiterated that is completely not ok. Even in his relationship with Victor he is being misgendered because Victor doesn’t identify as gay/queer and didn’t find Ry attractive until he saw him naked. Even Ry’s own description of his gender is strange and clearly misunderstood by the author, if we’re to believe he’s a trans man then why is he saying he’s both man and woman? Is he non binary then?
The most important thing to take away from this criticism, Jeanette Winterson, is that trans people are real people who will read your work, and know people who will read your work, the damage this book has done and could continue to do to our community is costly. Please do not use trans and other marginalised identities as literary devices. And please seek advice from multiple trans people before you pen the next one.
Clearly a talented author, incredibly well written book for the most part, but these problems I’ve outline here are too great that I can’t in good faith recommend this book to anyone.

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