Review: Frankenstein
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Ok, before I gush — this book isn’t perfect. There’s a lot more telling than showing, and the story is essentially three long monologues. But that’s okay with me. I think it works. The story is both heartbreaking and scary, and the epistolary nature of the book underscores the loneliness of each of the three men telling the story (that is, they have to divulge their lives to each other because they have (and have had) no one else to listen). None of the filmed versions has ever captured the full power and melancholy of Shelley’s classic. You may know the story thanks to the derivatives, but the atmosphere and tragedy is most sharply drawn in the novel. I love this one!