Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

15 reviews

andrikkk's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Classism, Deadnaming, Death, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexism, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Gun violence

Minor: Drug use

_ladypearce_'s review

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship and Death

Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, and Body horror

Minor: Grief

annielovesbooks14's review

dark fast-paced

4.0

I could not put this book down. It was very dark, which is why it was only 4 starts but it was still very good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Animal cruelty, and Blood

Moderate: Death and Child abuse

lamplight's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

THE ENDING NAUR 😭

wow this was a crazy? kinda gross? spooky? very sad? extremely interesting ride. im shook by the ending tho skdkfkg like what

overall i really liked this interpretation tho. the author's note at the very end... much to think about... women are so amazing

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Grief, Emotional abuse, and Death

Moderate: Body horror

caidyn's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

After reading a good portion of her books, I decided to retry this one since I remember not liking it. While it's not my favorite book by her, it's still a solid read. I more enjoyed the revision of how Victor usually is seen. I never liked him in the original Frankenstein, so I enjoyed how this one definitely twisted his character and made him very different. I do wish there had been more with the monster up until the end, and I also felt that there were some elements that could have been left out or modified a little, but it was still a good and fast read!

Original review

This review can also be found on my blog!

DNF at 61%

I’m not listing any content warnings because I didn’t catch any. Not that I’m doubting there are some, just that I was so. bored. that I didn’t make any mental note of them like I usually do.

And, I’m not joking when I say that I was SO. BORED.

I got 15 pages away from 200 and nothing had happened. There was stuff going on, but it was just a flat retelling of Frankenstein while I thought that it was going to maybe present more to the table, especially from this new perspective.

Alas.

I love Frankenstein. It’s a great gothic story, even if it drags. But, this book felt like it was so much following the same story and hinting at something with Victor — aka, the creator of the monster — without anything going on. I started spacing out who characters were, which got me lost since the story is mainly about the characters.

And the characters weren’t interesting. I found Elizabeth boring. Justine was just one dimensional. Victor was never on the page despite the story being focused around him. Henry who? And who were the little kids they were supposedly taking care of when they were at the house?

Comparing this to And I Darken, I think that this is just White’s style as an author. A lot of exposition leading up to no real payoff. I mean, I was nearly 100 pages from the end and there was nothing interesting going on.

I guess that White isn’t my kind of author and, from now on, I’ll likely be staying far away despite the hype. Two different books had the same problem for me. Safe to say I’m off this fan train.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Misogyny, and Toxic relationship