Scan barcode
mosswood's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
4.5
This was a fascinatingly unique book. The concept is incredible. I think the ending lost it slightly for me but I adored the journey the book took me on, despite it not always being obvious what this journey was.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Transphobia
cleot's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Transphobia
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Outing, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Child abuse, Genocide, Pedophilia, and Suicide
seaform22's review
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Sexual assault
frogsinthesummer's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Transphobia
aspellane94's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Homophobia, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Transphobia
velokei's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Interesting discussion of topics such as Ai and the meaning of life. I didn’t realise until embarrassingly late that Ron Lord was meant to be Byron, and Polly D was meant to be the other P name guy. I don’t think the rape scene was at all necessary, it was weird and out of place and I hated it
Content Warnings
Graphic: Deadnaming, Rape, Sexual assault, and Transphobia
Moderate: Antisemitism
monokeros's review
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault and Transphobia
mythian's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Sexual assault
keencreation's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Transphobia
maiakobabe's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
2.75
This book has three different story lines, one of which is much stronger than the other two, which is making it hard for me to figure out how I want to rate the book. The opening story line, and my favorite, is about Mary Shelley during the period in which she wrote Frankenstein. These scenes especially in the audiobook are beautifully read and atmospheric, damp, melancholy, introspective, with engaging characterizations of Byron, Percy Shelley, and the other guests of the house. The second story line is about Ry Shelley, a trans doctor living in post-Brexit Britain who becomes entangled romantically and criminally with Victor Stein, a researcher focused on AI, cryogenic preservation and reanimation, and training robots to detect human diseases. Ry is fairly genderfluid, and is often described as both a man and a woman, or a boy who is a girl who is a boy. I appreciated having a trans POV character in this book, but wished Ry had more of his own ambitions and plot- he seemed to exist primarily to have conversations and sex with Victor, who insisted over and over that he wasn't gay even after falling for and sleeping with Ry. Ry also interviews and then is repeatedly misgendered by Ron Lord, a Welsh entrepreneur in the sex robot industry- there is a lot in this book about sex bots, including huge chunks of uninterrupted dialogue by Ron Lord that got fairly repetitive in audio. Ry is also the victim of a bathroom sexual assault near the end of the book that felt thematically unnecessary and punishing. I can imagine a different version of this book where Ry was the one conducting the research that Victor does in this book, and his love interest is a modern version of Percy, which might have interested me more. There's also a third partial story line about Mary Shelley meeting a man named Victor Frankenstein who claims to be the character from her book; these didn't add anything for me. Would I recommend this? Hard to say. It's a complicated queer remix of Frankenstein and I was engaged while listening to the majority of it but there were also pieces that fell short of my expectations.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault