A review by bookedbymadeline
Love and Fury: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft by Samantha Silva

emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

Love and Fury is the story of Mary Wollstonecraft’s life as she tells it to her newborn daughter, Mary Shelley. The novel is told in switching POVs between Mary Wollstonecraft and her midwife, Mrs B.

They have very distinct voices with Mary’s told in first person since she’s telling the story of her life to her daughter. And Mrs B chapters are told in third person POV. Mary W’s chapters are also told using different language/word choices which can be harder to understand at times. Silva is very talented in being able to write in two such distinct voices and use the language typical of Wollstonecraft’s time, through the dialogue. Although it was hard to understand at times and made me feel confused or overwhelmed 🙊

I did enjoy Silva’s crafting of our two main characters and watching them develop throughout the book! She also does a great job of building the historical world/time period without bogging it down with too many details; it’s just enough to feel fully immersed without being overloaded/bored.

Because I read on my phone I was often distracted so it took a lot longer to finish this than I normally would have for such a short book! Fell off a bit in the second half especially as it got to be more philosophical and meandering at times, which caused the novel to drag especially during Mary W’s chapters as they were much longer. I was also disappointed that we don’t get the story of how Mary and William Godwin (Shelley’s father) fall in love! Although it did have a decent ending line, even if I wish we got a bit more of Wollstonecraft’s life story prior to Mary being born.

This is a Historical literary fiction but the historical aspect is more the time period, I’d argue it leans more towards lit fic in terms of the writing style! I’d recommend it for literary fiction lovers and say historical fiction fans will only enjoy it if they also like literary fiction. Also recommend if you want a story about motherhood, womanhood, and strong women fighting to reclaim their power and make their mark on the world!

Many are comparing it to Hamnet which I haven’t read yet but hope to at some point! Overall it was a beautiful, moving story that made me really excited to read Wollstonecraft’s work!

TW/CW: childbirth, medical trauma, blood, infertility, child abuse, rape, animal death (brief mention), animal cruelty, alcoholism, chronic illness, child death, death, grief, bigotry, colonialism (brief mention), violence, depression, suicide attempt, sexism
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