Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

14 reviews

cleot's review

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual assault, Transphobia, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Medical content, Gore, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Homophobia, Body horror, Outing, Ableism, Forced institutionalization, Death, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Suicide, Child abuse, Pedophilia, and Genocide

the transphobia by a sex partner was particularly upsetting to me as a trans person, as was the graphic on-page sexual assault of trans man resulting from bathroom harassment

siebensommer's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

‘you got a lot of not yets in your life‘ […]. she‘s right. i am liminal, cussing, in between, emerging, undecided, transitional, experimental, a start-up - or is it an upstart?

when people part, they usually hate each other, or one hates the other. - that is the conventional way. there are other ways. […] if we cannot keep this love, there is place in me that has been changed by this love and i will honour it - think of it as a kind of place of worship if you like. and sometimes, boarding a plane or waking up or walking down a street or taking a shower,… i will recall that place and never regret the time i spent there. 

life, we imagine, is familiar enough until we begin to tell it to another. then, observe the wonder on their faces. 

women blame each other all the time, it is a trick men play on us. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Child death, Transphobia, Death, and Deadnaming

balfies's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.75

This was weird. Like, properly twisted. Winterson is one of my favourite writers, so I always trust where she takes me. This was.... 

A modern retelling of Frankenstein wearing a coat made of transhuman, transgender, AI, sexbot feminist body horror sci-fi interleafed with Mary Shelley's own experiences of writing Frankenstein.

If you want a glimmer of queer macabre literary satire on what it means to be human and have a body, give it a go. 

Personally, it's not my fave from old Jeanie baby, reminds me a bit of Ian McEwan's slightly trite retelling of Hamlet from the perspective of a foetus, though admittedly there is more craft in Frankissstein than there was in Nutshell.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Medical trauma, Body horror, Medical content, and Transphobia

marissab's review against another edition

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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Grief, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Child death, Death, Hate crime, Medical content, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Transphobia

Moderate: Mental illness, Antisemitism, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Racism, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, and Outing

Minor: Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Deadnaming, and Pedophilia

schnanko's review

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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Deadnaming, Toxic relationship, Death, Grief, Sexual assault, Medical content, Transphobia, Hate crime, Outing, and Sexual violence

hannahbailey's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

This is an interesting exploration of what our future could look like: bionic humans, AI sex robots and eternal life (the brain as data). I loved how Winterson connects these ideas to Mary Shelley's ideas of human life and reanimation after death. This connection between the past and present shows how prevalent this idea of eternal life and making the impossible possible has always been. Shelley's perspective was engaging to read and reminded me how much I love her novel Frankenstein (perhaps more praise should be given to Shelley here than Winterson lol). The modern POV follows a non-binary trans person (Ry) and their relationship with Victor Stein, a scientist (of sorts) trying to bring his mate's beheaded head back to life. This was (perhaps purposefully) less engaging, as Ry often lacks agency amongst the people around them who shove their opinions of gender and identity down their throat.

I've read several reviews of this novel in which people describe Winterson as transphobic. In this novel specifically, I don't see the ignorant views of the characters as a reflection of her own views. However, there is very crude language used throughout which focuses on the anatomy of the characters. I don't feel that this narrative focus on bodily features has aged well (I know this book is only 3 years old but even then)  in response to present ideas of gender, sex and identity. The characters around Ry are consistently transphobic, denying their identity, misgendering them and deadnaming them. This is a book to read if you're interested in the future of AI and human relationships, but not if you're looking for a story with good trans rep. Had this book not featured Frankenstein but a different cautionary tale, such as Brave New World, I probably would've hated it.

Alternative reads with trans rep/trans authors:

https://bookriot.com/best-trans-fantasy-books/
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/126482.Novels_by_Trans_Authors_with_Trans_Protagonists

Jeanette Winterson//transphobia:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-lgbt-books/no-rush-to-change-gender-uk-writer-joins-trans-debate-idUSKCN1T028R

Non-exhaustive list of TW: sexual assault, transphobia, homophobia, child death, miscarriage, misogyny, body horror/gore

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body shaming, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Medical content, Death, Child death, and Transphobia

Moderate: Miscarriage

mobygrapes's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Transphobia

Moderate: Medical trauma, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Child death, and Medical content

andreamatallin's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Sexual harassment, Death, Sexual assault, Sexism, Mental illness, and Medical content

pages_with_a_preoccupied_prin's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

I really enjoyed this book and found the concept really clever. I loved the interlinking stories that cross time and found the themes in this book really compelling. It was a thought-provoking, gorgeously written book that I would highly recommend.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Transphobia

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

💭 My thoughts 💭: This wasn't the right book for me, but it is a good book. I didn't enjoy the ongoing existential conversations about what life was, and whether life was still life if you were in a new body. I also didn't appreciate the sex robot guy (but I think that's what the author was going for). I really liked the dual timeline looking back at Marry Shelley as she conceptualizes Frankenstein, though! 

📚 The gist 📚: Along a dual-timeline, Mary Shelley dreams up a monster novel in the 1810s, and a man two hundred years later ponders over what constitutes life and death.  

📒Representation📒: Ftm mc, mlm mc, cherecter with a more flexible sexuality

💕 For readers looking for 💕: the existential questions of what constitutes life dredged up by Frankenstein, books about books (kind of), and characters becoming real

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Cursing, Medical content, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual content, Sexism, Toxic relationship, and Transphobia