Book Reviews

Hey everyone!

I hope you are all excited for summer- I know I am!

I've been asked to write a book review for this month, and to be honest, I haven't been doing much leisure reading...

So I've decided to review a book I had to read for school.

[Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly]

I know...it looks kind of freaky, but I highly enjoyed it. 

Unless you've read the book, you probably have no idea what Frankenstein is really about.

The main idea of the novel was dangerous knowledge and how people end up mentally destructing themselves due to their own dissatisfaction. The story begins with a series of letters written by a man named Walton who wishes to be in "the country of eternal light," aka the North Pole. He believes in Romanticism and is always on a quest for knowledge and the meaning of life. He believes he's above others intellectually, thinks no one will ever understand him, and highly values his identity, yet wishes for someone to relate to at the same time. I loved that ironic take on his personality. The letters tell snippets of his journeys and encounters with people who tell their stories of drinking from the "intoxicating drink," aka knowledge. They explain how people who think the whole world is their town are the happiest because they don't know of anything they can't have. This side story helps to develop the themes of the novel.

Victor Frankenstein, the main character, is also quite a Romantic. He's enthralled with philosophy and is looking to make some sort of impact on the world. He's eventually led to create his monster. His initial plan is to just create human life, but when he sees how ugly his creation is, he declares it a monster and spends all his time avoiding it. This monster represents the monster he's created inside of himself. The "monster" really is not a monster and it's easy to sympathize with him because he's just as human as anyone else. Because he doesn't know what proper human behavior is, he doesn't realize the way Frankenstein treats him is wrong until he observes another family. He then turns on Frankenstein and really does try to haunt him. Frankenstein is constantly trying to escape, but the monster defends himself, saying that if he wants to escape then he should have treated him well. *spoiler alert* He eventually ends up destroying the monster and the story is taken back to the first scene in the book- the "country of eternal light"- where Frankenstein now realizes there's really nothing else left there and now he realizes that it's nothing but a barren wasteland. 

I'm so glad I had to read this book because I never would have picked it up on my own. If you don't like underlying meanings don't read this, because that's the whole point of it. Personally I thought the metaphors were brilliant and I was completely fascinated by the overall story and ideas. 

Have you read this book? What did you think?

XX,

Signe