Reviews with content warning for Racism - Frankenstein

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

56 reviews

jhobbs2020's review against another edition

3.75

dark mysterious reflective 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

Content Warnings

whumper's review against another edition

3.75

dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

and the worst father of the year award goes to…!

yeah so i think i would have rated this 5 stars if not for the incest. unfortunately it did get extremely distracting, especially during the last bit of the book (he legit would talk about elizabeth being his cousin/sister in every other fucking sentence). frankenstein’s monster had the best chapters, his account & ending monologue were great. i loved the themes and unreliable narration.

Content Warnings

gluewing's review against another edition

3.25

Content Warnings

jazzle_dazzle's review against another edition

4.75

dark emotional reflective 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: Yes

Content Warnings

gxuosi's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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: Yes

oh to become wretched at the hands of your own maker, in the absence of affection, and in the continued excommunication from anyone else

Content Warnings

lawphenix's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

cryptid_des's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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: Yes

Beautifully illustrates the struggle of what makes someone human and what makes someone a monster

Content Warnings

vi_violetrose's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A classic that was far ahead of its time. It’s honestly incredible how true to life the ideas presented here are, despite being incredibly subversive for the time it was written.

One of the more interesting stories that use an unreliable narrator, given the multiple layers of narration within each other.

I loved that we didn’t hear from the creature directly (since his story was told from Victor’s recollection, who is obviously biased) until the very end (and even then not directly because Walton, who has been influenced by Victor, is telling it).

Though sometimes I felt like Victor would reiterate the same points a bit too much in his narration, and some parts were a bit slow, I don’t have any major issues with the novel. Even then, I felt like there was a point to Victor constantly rehashing how miserable he was.

The prose is beautiful, and the dialogue, especially from the Creature, is striking. This is a book that 100% deserves its status as a classic.

Content Warnings

moniquita_frita98's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

clevermird's review against another edition

3.5

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Nineteenth in my quest to read the “great classics” of Western literary canon, Frankenstein is one of the ones I read before, an impulsive pick from my 15-year-old self that I recall not caring for much. And while my feelings about it have improved on a reread, ultimately I still wasn’t all that into it.

Often credited as the world’s first science fiction story, Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a Swiss aristocrat who leaves his family to attend university. While there, his interest in chemistry and outdated scientific theories combine in his brilliant young mind to produce an insane idea: he can create an artificial human. Months of frenzied work later, the creature emerges and Frankenstein, overwhelmed by the horror of what he has done, rejects him, setting off a chain of tragic and horrific events.

To some extent, Frankenstein is kind of above personal thoughts about it. It’s inspired so many adaptations and derivative works and imitations and homages that it’s become a cultural touchstone and like many cultural touchstones, it’s hard to judge independently. Does Frankenstein feel underwhelming because it doesn’t explore its basic premise of artificial humanity much? Or is it simply that with the kind of ground Shelly was breaking here in science fiction’s early days, the existence of the premise alone was creative and avant garde enough already? Is the plot predictable to the point of making the protagonist seem annoyingly naive because it truly is, or because I’ve seen a lot of horror movies, many of which were inspired by Frankenstein or by things that were inspired by it?

Regardless of where you fall on those questions, though, there’s still quite a bit to enjoy in this book. For a 200-year-old book, it reads quite smoothly and although the middle lags a bit with a long opening and an unnecessary story within a story within a story within a story (yes, you read that right) that ultimately goes nowhere, the book is short and goes by pretty quickly. I enjoyed the philosophical questions that the book raises and ultimately leaves unanswered. Those, I think, will still with me far longer than the actual plot or characters will.

As a side note, although this book is technically science fiction, those looking for a traditional scifi narrative will be pretty severely disappointed. As alluded to above, there’s only one science fiction element in the story, the creation of the artificial human, and while this is the inciting incident, the science of it all is completely glossed over, to the point that the story would have changed little if the monster had been created magically or if there was some kind of mundane explanation for how a man with no previous contact with humankind appeared in the middle of eighteenth century Switzerland. While this isn’t a point against the book (it’s not trying to be classic scifi, it’s trying to be philosophical horror), it is something that potential readers should be aware of.

To sum up a rambling review, I didn’t really love Frankenstein, but I did enjoy elements of it and I respect its contributions to genres that I love. It’s not something I’d ever call a personal favorite, but it’s near-essential reading for anyone who enjoys science fiction, fantasy, or horror literature.

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