A review by rhganci
Shelley's Poetry and Prose by Percy Bysshe Shelley

5.0

The book that began science fiction, it reeks of a tragedy too perfectly concocted to fully capture in a quarter-page book journal entry. I love every character in this book for what they bring to it, and it is one of the few books I can read effortlessly, even though it contains almost no dialogue. It is a joy to teach, because every year I learn something new about it, and not many books present that kind of “replay value.” I’m actually pretty glad that I didn’t have to study this one in college, because I don’t think that I’d appreciate it as much as I do. Perhaps my love for it has something to do with the fact that it was the first novel that I ever taught at the high-school level, but I think that the story and the thematic questions the book raises make me enjoy it for all the more reasons. I love how real and how human the creature seems, and the idea that Victor is the real monster. Whether or not Mary Shelley had that in mind when she wrote is a question worth asking.