A review by chwaters
Man Made Boy by Jon Skovron

3.0

Boy is the son of Frankenstein's Monster and The Bride. He's lived his entire life in a theater operated by magical beings who cannot pass for human in the outside world. These magical beings are the monsters we know from stories, fables, fairy tales and mythology. Boy, who already doesn't fit in with the outside world, also has problems fitting in with his own misfit community. He tends to be regarded as more "science" than "magic" is treated with derision from many of the monsters. His main comfort is the online community and Boy is a talented hacker. When the sentient computer program he created flops and relationships at the theater become tense, Boy heads out to try his hand at living among humans. It turns out to be harder than he thought. It turns out that humans require things like photo IDs and SSNs to gain employment, which is necessary for the rest of living on one's own. After an ill-fated first crush/breakup and the realization that the AI program Boy created worked entirely too well, Boy hits the road, this time with the granddaughters of Jeckyl and Hyde.
This wound up being quite a bit of fun. The details are clever, from the company at the theater to the nature of the program-gone-wrong that Boy creates. My only complaint is that the storyline involving the troll girlfriend feels unnecessary by the end of the book. Otherwise, a nice take on the classics-reinterpretation-genre.