Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

19 reviews

waterbear0821's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

It’s an interesting thought exercise, overlaying Frankenstein on modern culture, medicine, and technology. I get why this book is good. It gave me the brain-tingling feelings of good literature, where I can feel myself thinking about things in a new way. I enjoyed the shifting, melding perspectives, the recurring, regenerative, reimagined themes. The general science fiction horror structure and style. But also why are the characters in literature so blank and deplorable? Bah. Also, big CW vibes. Having a trans main character doesn’t mean you have to include hate crimes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Rape, and Hate crime

Moderate: Sexual violence, Child death, Homophobia, Sexual content, and Misogyny

lily_peach's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I very much enjoyed parts of this book, and really did not enjoy others.

If Ry had been a nonbinary character, a lot of the things he said regarding his gender and his body would have made sense. As he is explicitly a trans man it instead came across as though the author does not see trans men as ‘real men’ and projected this onto Ry - I do not know a single binary trans person who would happily deadname themselves to strangers, call themselves ‘anatomically [their assigned gender at birth]’ or be happy with a partner who constantly invalidates their gender in the way Victor does.

There were moments that played around with gender in a way I thought was interesting (e.g. Ron constantly filp-flopping on whether or not Ry was a ‘real man’ based on completely arbitrary things) but not enough to save it imo.

A kind of enjoyable story, but I don’t think it really went anywhere. The ending was disappointing. 

Also I felt that the sexual assault scene was entirely unwarranted and added very little to the plot. What was the point of it? To show that absolutely no one sees Ry as a ‘real man’? The transphobia of the other characters did that well enough.

All in all a clever concept and I very much enjoyed the writing style but I found it lacking.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Deadnaming, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Transphobia

Moderate: Antisemitism, Alcohol, and Animal cruelty

cormoth's review against another edition

mysterious reflective slow-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Transphobia

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Child death

marissab's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Grief, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Child death, Death, Hate crime, Medical content, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Transphobia

Moderate: Mental illness, Antisemitism, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Racism, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, and Outing

Minor: Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Deadnaming, and Pedophilia

obliiviium's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

"My closest conversations are bad translations."



While I have thoroughly enjoyed Winterson's The Stone Gods (I gave it 5 stars, as it managed to get me out of a years-long book slump), this one did not quite hit the mark for me. However, this one quote speaks to me on a personal level. Rarely do I read something that leaves me speechless. But there was another such moment: a short story hidden amongst the pages. A story about the relationship of a robot and a man.
However, I was not a fan of Ry's storyline. The characters did not sit well with me, and neither did the plot (Mary Shelley's storyline, on the other hand, I found great). Moreover, at times I was unable to follow the plot properly and I found myself rereading passages.
All in all, I would recommend this book for people who ponder about AI. For me, it's a 3/5, but I do think that the aforementioned quote and short story will stick with me for some time.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Transphobia

Minor: Sexual content

thereadingscorpios's review against another edition

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Transphobia, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Gaslighting, Racism, Homophobia, Sexual content, Death, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Antisemitism

elenaluisa's review

challenging fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Had to read it for class but found it very difficult because of the transphobia. Would not recommend. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Hate crime, Transphobia, Rape, Sexual violence, Outing, and Sexual content

kshertz's review

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I think that this title for this book is pretty misleading because it really feels like the title is trying to lend it self to like a romantic comedy. However, this is a very deep intense book looking at artificial intelligence, Frankenstein, and what it means to be a human. I was a little uncomfortable with the fact that they had a trans person in the book and they were comparing that with artificial intelligence and built humans that are brought back to life. It made it feel like a trans person is comparable to different pieces of life that were not necessarily human and I did not like that aspect. I don’t think that was the author’s intention at all. It just made me feel like maybe they were biting off more than needed to be in the novel and in doing that kind of equated trans with not normal so I was not liking that. But there was a lot of interesting themes and connections in the book that really made me think. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Transphobia, Misogyny, Sexual content, Homophobia, Dysphoria, Body shaming, and Toxic relationship

kaia's review

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Homophobia, Sexual content, Cursing, and Deadnaming

Moderate: Child death, Sexual assault, Antisemitism, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Pedophilia

elossa's review

challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Sexual assault, and Sexual content