A review by lizshayne
Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Brook Tsai

challenging dark sad tense 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? Yes

3.5

I love Frankenstein but I don't always like Frankenstein and it is somewhat unfair to this book that some of the places where I think it is least successful is in the places where it feels beholden to Frankenstein. The gender bending is deeply fascinating - both in the number of bad fathers that carries right on the legacy of Frankenstein - and in the shift from creation without a mother in the original to creation without a father.
And I appreciate that it does not, as a book, want easy answers to the messy question of the queer relationship with the monster. And there is still something very strange to me about characters familiar with Frankenstein and then making the same stupid mistakes. RIP Vic but I'm different indeed.

My biggest critique is the subplot with Ezra, which I suppose is necessary for the betrayal aspect of the story but adds so little other than to give a space for Ash to act out the very real murder monstrosity of the original and this book--like Shelley's, come to think of it--is ENTIRELY unprepared to grapple with the enormity of murder and what it means to go on.
I do, however, appreciate that this book and I appear to agree that the turning point in the text is when Frankenstein is asked to make the monster a partner. Community, people.