this novel is a dazzlingly intelligent meditation on the responsibilities of creation, the possibilities of artificial intelligence and the implications of both transing gender and transhumanism. Its fragmented form follows the structure of the monstrous and the post modern and its delightful historical bawdy details with big ideas and glorious prose

Intertwines the stories of Mary Shelley and a modern-day transgender doctor named Ry. As Ry falls for the enigmatic AI specialist Victor Stein, their relationship explores the boundaries of love, identity, and technology. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, a quirky entrepreneur, adds a touch of humor with his ambitious plans for sex dolls, creating a rich mix of characters navigating a world on the brink of technological revolution.

Evocative and tinged with sadness. I liked the modern take to highlight the universality of the themes in the original. Now I want to read more from Winterson.

This was just a case of this being the completely wrong book for me. I thought the premise sounded interesting but the subject matter was a little too explicit for me. I also had a hard time with the writing style and the fact that there were no quote marks. Everything felt so choppy to me. I’m disappointed that this one wasn’t a hit, but I’m definitely not the right fit for this book.

This book is an original take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It was interesting but also hard to get through. There was a lot going on and with a copy that wasn't well formatted, it just made it impossible to follow the story. I will probably give this one another shot on paper.

This book is sort of epic. It's a retelling of Frankenstein. I bet you didn't figure that out from the title, right? Obvious Girl strikes again!

Anyway, there is a lot going on with this. Ry Shelley is non-binary, but presents as a male. Victor Stein is working to prolong life after death and despite not previously having engaged in non-hetero sexual relationships, finds himself attracted to Ry.

The whole book is about a disconnect between the mind and the body. What happens to you after you die and what exactly is the body other than a meat suit? I am way oversimplifying. Let's just say that it makes you think about stuff and that is always a good thing imo.

There is this one scene that takes place in a bar that absolutely broke my heart. You'll have to read it yourself to understand.

I am torn as to how to talk about this book. On the one hand, I enjoyed the historical fiction aspect of seeing Mary Shelley create the science fiction genre. I also intrigued by the premise of a trans doctor helping a (dare I say mad) scientist procure parts for experiments in the midst of a sex expo. However, the way other characters were opening transphobic toward Ry, including an assault that was too briefly discussed, and the way Ry spoke about himself makes me wonder if there were any trans sensitivity readers employed during the editing process. The writing was beautiful but the story was questionable.

I am in charge of the senior library and work with a group of Reading Ambassadors from 16-18 to ensure that our boarding school library is modernised and meets the need of both our senior students and staff. It has been great to have the chance to talk about these books with our seniors and discuss what they want and need on their shelves. I was drawn to his book because I thought it would be something different from the usual school library fare and draw the students in with a tempting storyline and lots to discuss.
This book was a really enjoyable read with strong characters and a real sense of time and place. I enjoyed the ways that it maintained a cracking pace that kept me turning its pages and ensured that I had much to discuss with them after finishing. It was not only a lively and enjoyable novel but had lots of contemporary themes for our book group to pick up and spend hours discussing too.
I think it's important to choose books that interest as well as challenge our students and I can see this book being very popular with students and staff alike; this will be an excellent purchase as it has everything that we look for in a great read - a tempting premise, fantastic characters and a plot that keeps you gripped until you close its final page.

In 1816, a group of young radicals from England gather overseas in a villa. They include Lord Byron, the poet Shelley, a doctor, Shelley's wife, Mary, and Mary's stepsister who is Byron's lover. There is not much to do as it rains incessantly. Bored, Byron challenges everyone to write a new work, including the nineteen year old Mary. She writes the story of Frankenstein, which she uses to explore her feelings about how each individual has their own worth and every person should be free to experiment and live to their fullest potential.

In modern age Britain, Ry Shelley, a descendant of Mary, is a doctor and a transgender who is making the transition from life as a woman to that of a man. He meets a brilliant scientist, Victor Stein, who is interested in how life can be defined, the field of artificial intelligence and the quest for immortality. Ry is willing to help at first, bringing Victor discarded limbs for his experiments but she hesitates when he reveals the full range of his experiments and what he is willing to do to push the barriers of what it means to be human.

This novel was a longlist nominee for the Booker Prize last year. It is an interesting mix of the two time periods and what it means to be human in each era. In the early 1800's, it is the ability for women to be treated as full citizens of the countries they inhabit. In modern times, it is the ability of each person to define basic facts about themselves such as gender and appearance, to do the work they desire and to push the frontiers of knowledge. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

I appreciated what the author was trying to do but it wasn’t executed well. I dragged through the writing even though I was so excited about the premise initially.

The concept is great- 2 timelines: Mary Shelley writing her novel and Dr. Ry Shelley a trans person who is figuring out their identity. The mere were some parallels but absolutely no action in the story, just a lot of back and forth conversations on post-humanism, religion, technology, sexbots, creation, and men versus women. Nothing too new. Very close to DNF-ing.

4.5★
“Yeah, you can be old, you can be ugly, you can be fat, smelly, you can have an STD, you can be broke. Whether you can’t get it up, or you can’t get it down, there’s an XX-BOT for you. Public service. I tell you, it is. Do you think I might get an MBE? Mum would love that.”

Well, that was certainly different! Even for Winterson, whom I always enjoy, this was an inventive, imaginative blend of past, present, and future. It is also a cautionary tale of “be careful what you wish for”.

The speaker of the above is Ron Lord, promoter of sexbots that cater for all. Winterson is playful with names, and there does come a time when the name “Lord” does get a turn.

Victor is another. Victor Stein is a current-day doctor investigating self-designing brains and cryonics, while Victor Frankenstein is the doctor in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s famous novel about his creation of a monster (whom we usually refer to as Frankenstein now). Mary’s name crops up as Ry, who is gender-fluid.

“When I look in the mirror I see someone I recognise, or rather, I see at least two people I recognise. . . . I am what I am, but what I am is not one thing, not one gender. I live with doubleness.”

The three stories alternate, but they do overlap in unusual ways. It begins with Mary, who was married young to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and wrote Frankenstein when she was only 19 years old. She was the daughter of famous feminist, author, philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft who died shortly after the birth.

Mary ran with a cool crowd – the poets. Doesn’t this sound like a current crop of celebrities holidaying and partying together? Keeping Up With The Poets?

“In the summer of 1816 the poets Shelley and Byron, Byron’s physician, Polidori, Mary Shelley and her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, by then Byron’s mistress, rented two properties on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Byron enjoyed the grand Villa Diodati, while the Shelleys took a smaller, more charming house, a little lower down the slope. Such was the notoriety of the households that an hotel on the farther shore of the lake set up a telescope for their guests to watch the antics of the supposed Satanists and Sexualists who held their women in common.”

Mary was bright (she edited her husband’s work) and outspoken, but the boys often put her in her place, especially Lord Byron, who was about ten years older.

“Byron is of the opinion that woman is from man born – his rib, his clay – and I find this singular in a man as intelligent as he. I said, It is strange, is it not, that you approve of the creation story we read in the Bible when you do not believe in God? He smiles and shrugs, explaining – It is a metaphor for the distinctions between men and women. He turns away, assuming I have understood and that is the end of the matter, but I continue, calling him back as he limps away like a Greek god. May we not consult Doctor Polidori here, who, as a physician, must know that since the creation story no living man has yet given birth to anything living? It is you, sir, who are made from us, sir.

The gentlemen laugh at me indulgently. They respect me, up to a point, but we have arrived at that point.”

Oh, don’t you want to slap the man? ”. . . assuming I have understood and that is the end of the matter.”

Mary’s story covers several years of her life, how she is inspired to write and then frightened of her creation. Nightmares, recriminations. The monster’s story is told as if it is real – a kind of AI gone awry.

“The monster I have made is shunned and feared by humankind. His difference is his downfall. He claims no natural home. He is not human, yet the sum of all he has learned is from humankind.”

Back to the future (today), and the sexbot promoter and the brain-developer, Victor Stein. His claim to fame is his theory that the future is not biology, it is AI. Artificial Intelligence.

“He said, I called this lecture The Future of Humans in a Post-Human World because artificial intelligence is not sentimental – it is biased towards best possible outcomes. The human race is not a best possible outcome.”

There are a couple of love stories woven through this with tenderness, passion, sex, and betrayal. The parts that appealed to me were Mary with her poets and Ry with Victor (brains) and Ron Lord (sexbots). I didn’t care much for the monster and poor Victor Frankenstein, but of course, that’s the story that holds the rest together.

There’s history – the Luddites smash looms because they don’t want “progress”, which means being replaced by machines. And we meet Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who is credited with writing the first algorithm for a ‘mathematical machine’ (first computer). She was featured as recently as 2020 in Spyfall 2 and an episode of Dr. Who. There is an Ada Lovelace medal and an annual Ada Lovelace day. But I digress.

With Winterson, there’s also humour, and she makes the most of Ron Lord and his sexbots with something for everybody. The descriptions of how to transport them (folding, etc) are hilarious, as are many of the supporting characters in this remarkable book.

“And over to Vintage. I love the two-piece suit and pillbox hat. I got this idea from the retro-porn sites. She’s late to the game but she brings plenty to the party.”

I'm sorry I've not shown examples of Winterson's chameleon-like ability to change voice, and style, and time, and character. Every person is their own self, if I can put it like that, and the descriptions of time and place suit each of them.

There are no quotation marks, and the e-book version in my Kindle messed up the formatting, so that I had to refer to the NetGalley PDF from time to time to figure out which time period I was in and who was speaking. I was so frustrated, I nearly gave up, but I trusted that Winterson would get me home safely (and she did). I've now seen the real e-book, and it's fine.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted. I can see why it made the 2019 Booker Prize longlist.

RATING:3 STARS
2019; Grove Atlantic/Grove Press

Frankissstein was my first novel by Jeanette Winterson, who has been on my tbr list for years. I loved her writing, but the book didn't work for me. I choose it for it's retelling of Frankenstein, a novel I love. I did appreciate the parallels, but I didn't connect with the story. I am not a big science fiction reader SO this could totally be over my head. I am really looking forward to my next Jeanette Winterson novel.

***I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.***

I've been a Jeanette Winterson fan since reading Written on the Body for the first time back in the mid-'90s. Although I've never encountered another story from her that I've loved quite as much as that one, I've still found myself enjoying every book she's written since (and a few from before). Frankissstein is no exception. It's good to see that Winterson continues to push boundaries by including characters from all walks of life.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a free ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

The author has written a creepy story literate fiction at its best a book I couldn’t put down.Will be recommending to my friends who enjoy literary fiction,#netgalley#groveatlantic

Thank you to the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during that 2nd attempt, I have only managed to make it halfway through so I’d rather stop here and state that this book just wasn't for me.

Lots of interesting things going on, ideas discussed but I found it confusing at times and never very engaged. I also ended up listening to the book in audio and was disappointed with the format.

There's a reason this novel and Winterson are always earning nominations for great book prizes! Winterson is a master of her craft and just keeps getting better with each year and novel she releases.

I really enjoyed this - it was clever and the writing was perfectly rendered to capture the multiple perspectives and timelines. There were moments of hilarity (oh, those sex-bots!) but also some really interesting and deeper discussions around gender and constructed binaries and AI, and thematically tying these all together across multiple timelines was masterfully done! Will definitely be reading more Winterson following this.

A thoroughly modern rendering of the Frankenstein story that self-consciously pays tribute to the creation of both the monster and the myth. I was hesitant to pick this up considering I often recoil at retellings, but this is anything but derivative.