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joyousone17's review against another edition
5.0
Kind of a frankenstein-ish plot...overall good read...very thought provoking.
suzysai's review against another edition
5.0
I love when a book can be bleak and heartbreaking and still completely engrossing. The story is so emotional throughout. It truly shows how our definition of a monster needs some revising. Excellent read!
lachimolala981's review against another edition
3.0
The storyline was interesting as well as the level of detail. I kind of wished that the climax was more dramatic, as there was a pretty big buildup. An interesting read for sure!
cmwilso3's review against another edition
2.0
Many other people have noted in the reviews that the description of this book is much better than the content. Though a few people were discouraged by the gratuitous sex scenes at the beginning, I decided to power through. Unfortunately, the story had the potential to be good, but the writing prevented it from becoming good. If that makes sense. The antagonist is not scary whatsoever and the protagonist is insufferable. Also, for some reason, the author has a fascination with telling the reader about the characters' need to urinate and defecate very frequently. Some of these times make sense, such as when the antagonist wants to analyze the chamberpot contents for "science." However, the number of times that people peed on themselves in this book was offputting to me. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive about it, but detailed descriptions of people's bowel movements, the frequency, and the appearance of said bowel movements did not make me want to continue reading. And these descriptions were in addition to casual mentions of "turds" regularly in times where "science" was not happening.
krobart's review against another edition
3.0
Convinced that he is a scientist and that he is making scientific experiments, an apothecary believes that what a pregnant woman experiences determines the formation of her child. Since he has a handy pregnant woman in his house, the maid Eliza Tally, he decides to use her for his experiments. Clark has written another disturbing but well-written and suspenseful novel.
See my complete review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/the-nature-of-monsters/
See my complete review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/the-nature-of-monsters/
amotisse's review against another edition
5.0
Gothic indeed.
Dark, delicate, delectable, descriptive, erotic, powerfully written.
Miserable history, horrendous scars, the deranged nature of human atrocities in the name of science.
Happy sad.
Dark, delicate, delectable, descriptive, erotic, powerfully written.
Miserable history, horrendous scars, the deranged nature of human atrocities in the name of science.
Happy sad.
rachel_mft's review against another edition
1.0
Horrible. Horrible horrible. I love a good gothic, but this was hideous. Left me feeling filthy and defiled, was utterly the wrong thing to read while 9 months pregnant (about a 1700s apothecary who is trying to prove the theory of maternal impression by exposing pregnant women to horrors to see if they will then give birth to monsters), and was not even a good story. If I had known just what it was about I would not have read it. Will now have to read some Rosamunde Pilcher just to cleanse my palate.
bookshy's review against another edition
2.0
Not interesting enough to want to read. Read anyways -_-
evieshka's review against another edition
2.0
I honestly can't say much about this book except that when I reached the end, I was very disappointed. I'm not sure if it was that I never really felt empathy for the main character, or that the villain was as dangerous as an ice cream sundae, or that the story just wound up falling short of being interesting. I will say that the synopsis on the dust jacket wound me up for a much better story than what was actually written.