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nadinekc 's review for:
Our Hideous Progeny
by C.E. McGill
A great addition to the Frankenstein literary family. The publisher's description is accurate but made me expect a super plotty book. It has a fine plot, but it's more than that - for me it was most importantly a character study of another impressive Mary, trying to live a fulfilled and authentic life in an era that wants to corset her body and mind. She felt so real to me, and her naturalness collapsed the historical distance between us. It was also a terrific portrait of a terrible, ordinary marriage that somehow seemed both quintessentially Victorian and universal. (Oh how I wanted to punch Henry in the face.) I feel like the publisher's marketing department pushes the feminist, queer angle hard, and while it's certainly important, the author doesn't treat it as a political point to be made; rather, it's something that emanates naturally and almost innocently from our narrator Mary's voice - the voice of a Victorian woman who I'm not sure would understand our 21st century version of these ideas, yet lives them anyway.