Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill

20 reviews

natahoochie's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Coulda been gayer. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Murder, Blood, and Gore

Moderate: Xenophobia, Medical content, Racism, Child death, Sexism, and Misogyny

Minor: Classism, Chronic illness, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Grief, and Death of parent

burnourhistory's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Animal cruelty, Child death, Grief, Blood, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Death of parent, and Death

Moderate: Xenophobia, Sexual harassment, and Murder

Minor: Addiction and Drug use

hmatt's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

3.5

I love the concept of this novel: it's very original and a fun gothic take on historical fiction for the classical lit nerds. It does drag a bit in the middle for me, so I think it could have been shorter. The queer rep is there but only just barely, honestly, and I wish it had been explored more.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Classism, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Death of parent

therebeckening's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Animal cruelty, and Sexism

Moderate: Xenophobia, Violence, Chronic illness, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Toxic relationship, and Child death

Minor: Lesbophobia and Miscarriage

Gambling, financial abuse,

sproutedpages's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Chronic illness representation: 

• Maise: migraines, asthma and lung issues, heart issues, history of childhood illness. 
• Mr. Jamsetjee: tremors (likely Parkinson's) referred to as “shaking palsy”.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, Death of parent, Gun violence, Animal death, Racism, Gore, Misogyny, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Classism, Drug use, and Murder

Minor: Miscarriage, Terminal illness, and Pregnancy

Discussion of phrenology (challenged) and racism in science, description of animal corpses and their decomposition (not overly graphic), description of surgical procedures on animal corpses, use of laudanum to treat chronic migraines, infant death/stillbirth

n0elle's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I have mixed feelings about this one. For one, I absolutely love classic retellings, especially if they’re sapphic and this one was a very interesting take on the original story of Frankenstein. 
Now, while I do know the author tried hard to make it appear historically correct, I found it absolutely exhausting to read hundreds of pages of men dictating the protagonist’s life, telling her what she can and can’t do, how she should behave, what (little) she’s worth. 
I’m all for women in STEM, driven by ambition and scientific ideas that lead through breakthroughs. BUT if  her ideas and success are always overshadowed by a man or even taken by a man, while she just sits idly by.. that’s infuriating, historically correct but still infuriating. And while the main character did get mad about these things, she always stayed quiet. In the rare moments she didn’t, she was belittled and reprimanded so much, I felt the shame of being a woman bleed through the pages. 
Maybe the writing was just too good and too real and it made me feel so many emotions, some of which I could have gone without. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Sexual harassment, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Violence, Gore, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Death, Grief, Animal cruelty, Blood, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Body horror, Bullying, Chronic illness, Sexism, Classism, Death of parent, Misogyny, Racism, and Terminal illness

_teoeo's review

adventurous emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

5.0

"Frankenstein" meets "Ammonite"!

I loved every page of this book. It truly is a little masterpiece! It's so full of feminism and science and history and love and betrayal. Oh and Mary and Masie, they are my favorites! I wish I had annotated it but guess I'll have to read it a second time now! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Misogyny, Blood, Sexism, Chronic illness, Grief, and Gun violence

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Death of parent

bex_hexandrecs's review

dark emotional informative medium-paced

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

5.0

OUR HIDEOUS PROGENY - REVIEW 

. 

Darkly vivid. Ambitiously academic. Grimly hopeful. 

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A story of obsession and the journeys of grief. Mary is the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein. Set in the mid 1800’s and offering a perspective of the era and its parallels to current time. 

A thought churning read that tactfully converses about chronic illness, queerness, and women as academics. 

. 

“I had once seen a moth in our back garden, so young that it was only just dry enough to fly, take wing from a blade of grass — only to be pounced upon immediately by the kitchen cat. In that moment, I felt a good deal like that moth.” 

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This is a beautifully written story that stitches together questions on the very ethics of morality, and leaves its readers clutching the pages with soft dark care. 

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This debut was a pleasure to both read and listen to as the narrator did an exquisite job personifying the characters and adding nuances to the reading experience. 

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a benchmark for science fiction and a story beyond its time, and it is a personal favourite. Our Hideous Progeny being a nod to the original works of Shelley was done with tact and grace, while creating something completely unique on its own. 

I look very forward to reading McGill’s future works. 

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Oh, and dinosaurs! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Chronic illness

nefariousbee's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring slow-paced

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

3.0

Underwhelming. I kept waiting for the main even to come, the monstrous, the hideous to begin, and it never did. The strangest thing is, if the writing allowed it, it would have? What I mean is in theory, what they sis was terrible and monstrous, only the way we are told the story doesn't really do it justice. 
I am frankly disappointed. This could have been exciting, dark, passionate... but it fell flat. Somehow it was barely dark. In my opinion this could have been a great book, but it needed to lean into the horror, and do some serious editing. As it is, it's just. Fine.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Ableism, Chronic illness, Gore, Animal death, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

Moderate: Murder, Animal death, Child death, Death of parent, Classism, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Racism, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Colonisation, and Emotional abuse

natashaleighton_'s review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

C.E. McGill’s richly detailed and utterly compelling debut was a deliciously gothic and feminist exploration of ambition, obsession, betrayal and love that I couldn’t get enough of! 

It’s set in 1851, at the height of the Victorian era’s fascination with all things dinosaur and follows Elizabeth (the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein) who (having spent the better part of her life being looked down on for being a woman interested in science and palaeontology) yearns to find scientific acclaim beyond the footnotes of other people’s research. But without any powerful connections or wealth, neither Mary or her husband stand a chance of ever succeeding.

Armed only with letters containing snippets of her great uncles’ past —of creating life from death (which ultimately led to his own), Mary decides to use what little of his research remains to take the scientific community by storm. And, with her husband Henry, attempt to bring life to a creature never before seen by human eyes. 

But on the precipice of success, Mary begins to question the ethics and morality surrounding their creation and the love that she has developed for the creature. 

I loved every second of this! It’s such an electrifyingly creative and wholly original take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and I genuinely couldn’t put it down. 

The writing is lush and beautifully atmospheric, and as intricately woven as the stitches that adorn the eponymous ‘creature’ which definitely showcases the gothic/horror genre to perfection! 

I was in absolute awe of just how immersive the descriptions were and loved that it really delves into the inequalities of the Victorian era and the classist, sexist and racist attitudes which were prevalent and still very much relevant today. 

I adored Mary, who’s character takes inspiration from not one but three impressive women of the 19th C: Mary Shelley, Mary Anning (the self-taught palaeontologist who found the first Ichthyosaur fossil) and Mary Somerville (one of the first women admitted into the Royal Astronomical Society), and really enjoyed discovering just how much of their stories connected to our refreshingly bold and sharp-tongued protagonist—especially Mary Anning, who seemed to have to the most in common with our plesiosaur-obsessed MC. 

With what we see of Mary’s childhood and isolated upbringing with her grandmother (a woman who seemed to despise Mary simply for existing) I couldn’t help but be endeared to her (and root for her to succeed.) 

I was less enamoured of her husband (or any of the male characters aside from Mr. Jamsetjee who was such a sweetheart) though the realism and accuracy to the contemporary attitudes of the day were spot on and really highlighted how remarkably strong Mary (and others like her) had to be to persevere in such a harsh, discriminatory environments.

The pace was quite slow to begin however, I felt it definitely helped to build up that tense, anticipatory feeling that gothic fiction is known for—and by the half way point things really kicked into gear and ‘things’ got super interesting. 

If you love dark, gothic-esque historical fiction, queer horror or Silvia Moreno-Garcia then you absolutely must check this out, it’s fantastic! 

Also, a massive thank you to Izzie Ghaffari-Parker and Doubleday books for the wonderful proof. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, and Animal death

Moderate: Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Gun violence, Gaslighting, and Child death

Minor: Colonisation, Death of parent, Racism, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment