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A review by khaufnaak
Mathilda by Mary Shelley
4.0
I read this over four months, so I don’t exactly remember my experiences along the entire journey. In the beginning I disliked the writing slightly, because it reminded me of the sad philosophizing of a teenage girl on Wattpad. Which I guess would make sense considering that perhaps a remarkable number of teenage girls on Wattpad have emotionally incestuous relationships with their fathers.
I actually do like this book. I think it captures early on a young girl’s experiences with a childhood of emotional neglect. When she has a good time with her father, you actually feel happy for her and can authentically connect with the joy it brings her. This book has no actual incest and is not sexually explicit at all. I think it’s an expression of what emotional incest must be like.
Mathilda’s saga with Woodville is I think when we see some of Mary Shelley’s best writing for this book. I think it really encapsulates the richness of this beautiful love, how it feels for Mathilda to feel her own love and that love which Woodville expresses for her. Woodville is very much a perfect emotionally intelligent type of character.
Overall a pretty good book. It expresses a lot of pain and suffering and also later this kind of restrained but rich love. It’s also very dark, even though there isn’t any physical incest, the disgust and sadness that was invoked in me while reading this was overwhelming. Mathilda loves her father greatly, but is violated and pained by his confession of incestuous love for her. It’s terrifying.
I actually do like this book. I think it captures early on a young girl’s experiences with a childhood of emotional neglect. When she has a good time with her father, you actually feel happy for her and can authentically connect with the joy it brings her. This book has no actual incest and is not sexually explicit at all. I think it’s an expression of what emotional incest must be like.
Mathilda’s saga with Woodville is I think when we see some of Mary Shelley’s best writing for this book. I think it really encapsulates the richness of this beautiful love, how it feels for Mathilda to feel her own love and that love which Woodville expresses for her. Woodville is very much a perfect emotionally intelligent type of character.
Overall a pretty good book. It expresses a lot of pain and suffering and also later this kind of restrained but rich love. It’s also very dark, even though there isn’t any physical incest, the disgust and sadness that was invoked in me while reading this was overwhelming. Mathilda loves her father greatly, but is violated and pained by his confession of incestuous love for her. It’s terrifying.