I love Sally Thorne and the charming weirdness of her previous books, but Angelika was too weird even for me. A Frankenstein retelling that doesn't have the "scientist" reckon with their decision and their subject's lack of consent doesn't sit well with me, especially since Angelika explictly created her "monster" so she could marry and have sex with him. I also found the way Angelika and Victor talked about said creation and his ahem physical attributes to be off-putting - I would rather cut off my own arm than talk with my brother that way. The book also turned weirdly religious at the end. All in all, not for me, but I do admire Sally for taking a chance and writing something so different from her other books.

Review posted on Goodreads now and to be posted on Instagram @aleasbooknook on September 1st at 7:30am

2.75/5⭐️ 𝚎𝙰𝚁𝙲 - 𝙿𝚞𝚋. 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚎: 𝚂𝚎𝚙𝚝. 6, 2022

This is gonna be a tough review to write.

This book was raved over by other reviewers for being the gothic, Tim-Burton-esque historical romance that we all needed. I am here to give you a critical review and let you know that it is 𝑵𝑶𝑻 that.

First, here's what I did like:

The ending. The last 15% of the book was more convincing than the other 85%. It was during that 15% that I finally started understanding the relationship between Angelika and Will. The inclusion of Mary Shelley at the end was also a nice touch.

Now for what I didn't like:

Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match is a book that struggles to find a genre and a course for the story. The story goes all over the place and has many loose ends that are not tied up. It was almost as if this book needed a little more editing before being published. Or, well, maybe 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆. There were grammatical errors, sentences that just didn't make sense, and sentences that were misplaced.

Beyond the grammar errors and plot-holes, the entire premise just infuriated me. Sally Thorne painted Angelika as a spoiled, indecisive woman who cannot possibly live her life without a man. Angelika must be married or she will simply 𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒃𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌. This is true for her in the beginning when they create her "perfect man" (this is problematic too) and in the end. However, it is important to note that even though she is a static character that shows little to no development throughout the course of the novel, the other characters have convinced themselves she is different. Her "change" is mentioned several times by other characters, although it is virtually nonexistent.

This review is getting awfully long, so I will make a few more short points:

Angelika and Will's relationship is highly unbelievable because Will goes from, "I couldn't possibly, ever, want to be with you," to "I must have you NOW," too quick. There is no build up and nothing to convince the reader that it is sincere until the end.

The lewd comments that Victor makes towards or about Angelika and her love life is just...uncomfortable. Especially considering they are siblings.

Thank you Netgalley and Sally Thorne for allowing me to read an eARC of this book.

This book has been my favorite I’ve read this year. You may think I’m biased because I’ve loved every book Sally Thorne has written, however, there’s something deeply special and moving about this story.
Angelika has always lived under the shadow of her older brother, mad scientist Victor Frankenstein. However, she gets her chance to shine when she creates her perfect specimen - her perfect match.
The only problem? The match doesn’t remember his past life, and all he wants is to find out about who he was and who he is. Angelika learns through her perfect match that it’s not always about her, and in that is able to let go of her selfish ways and become a better person.
Themes of heartache, love, loneliness, and faith run through the book, and it’s so beautiful, it leaves you aching for more.
To say this book is beautiful is an understatement. It’s exquisite.

I really enjoyed this book. It was quirky and fun and not what I was expecting. It was more lighthearted than I thought it was going to be, but that's okay. It was a bit all over the place at times, but there were moments that made me laugh and quotes I will certainly be saving. The epilgoue with mentions of Mary Shelley was such a cute and nice touch. It made me smile.

I plan on posting my Instagram review in the next few days with an added touch to it.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really fun take on a classic. Add this to your fall Rom-Com TBR because it's a beautifully quirky take on a classic we all know and love. Buckle up for all the Sally Thorne rom com fun you know and love in this one.

Such a bizarre book-I just couldn't see myself offering it as a suggestion to a library patron unless I know their reading tastes really well.

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match

I’ll be honest in saying, I don’t really know where to go in my review of this book.

It was an extremely weird read. There were parts that made me laugh but also parts where I was super confused. Several times I felt like I must’ve skipped a page? Or a paragraph? It felt disjointed and while I can appreciate meandering for a bit, I never felt confident in what exactly was happening.

I think the plot had potential but I didn’t connect with the characters and sometimes I felt incredibly bored.

Now for the good — there were several romantic scenes with cute banter between Angelika and her “match” — I just wish I had connected with the characters more because I never felt invested in their love story. I also enjoyed the setting/atmosphere, with the “Frankenstein” vibes. It was unique to take that aspect and write a romance.

Overall, this was just an ok read for me, but I’d recommend it if you’re wanting something different and unusual.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This novel is like no other Sally Thorne book that you have read. It’s a madcap romp of a historical fan fic novel. It’s weird. Can be bordering on crude at times. Made me question my sanity in reading it, but also kept me quite entertained.

The novel is centered on Angelika Frankenstein, sister of Victor. She creates her perfect man to fall in love with and marry, but as in the original Mary Shelley things go awry. There’s a love triangle and the mysterious identity of Angelika’s creation to conquer before she can even think of settling down.

I went back and forth about what to rate this novel. I think it’s one that people will either love for the madcap romp or dislike for the same reason. I settled on a neutral rating for myself. There were things that I loved, but there were things that I disliked enough that I thought about not finishing the book.

3/5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for the eARC of this book.

I'd like to start off this review with the fact that this book definitely takes some suspension of disbelief knowing that you are being thrown into the fictional Frankenstein family with a newly added sister, Angelika. She and the infamous Victor Frankenstein are working together to gather cadavers and bring them back to life. It feels a bit more Pushing Daisies than horror, so never fear, Romance readers, it's pretty lighthearted!

Angelika is quite desperate to literally "make" her match. She and Victor work on their separate resurrection projects but Angelika is working to create a romantic partner for herself. The most shocking thing for me was the constant crass comments from Victor, as the source material Victor Frankenstein is often sickly and tortured, not lively, and making dirty jokes. That was a bit of a mind-shift for me.

I think this book is perfect for the fall/spooky season romance reading as it's spooky enough with supernatural elements, but it's fun and self-aware at the same time.

Thank you to Avon for the eARC via NetGalley.

G E N R E Switch Up: historical rom-com! Never thought I would be a fan of this genre, but this book was fun to read, funny and cute!

BOOK REVIEW: 🖤🖤🖤.5/5

Victor and Angelika Frankenstein are a brother and sister duo like no other. They experiment with dead bodies and bring them back to life! Angelika has been unlucky in love all her life and decides it is time to MAKE her MATCH! She creates this perfect man (Will) who she is in high hopes of falling in love with her. However, Will won’t devote himself to Angelika until he regains his memory/figures out who he really is. Science, love, amnesia, two incredible men fighting for Angelika’s attention … WHO will win her hand in marriage??

A fun and witty read to kick off Spooky Season with true LOL moments and a weird whacky romance that will keep you engaged and invested!

Thank you kindly to @harpercollinsca @sallythorneauthor and @netgalley for my gifted copy in exchange for my honest review! You can get your copy as of September 6, 2022!

I’d say this is truly one of the most odd, unusual and bonkers book I’ve ever read (but I do mean it in a good way cause I ended up enjoying myself a lot!)

Angelika Frankenstein makes her match will be perfect for people who love:-
- Slow burn romance
- Mutual Pining
- One of the characters loosing their memory (Amnesia)
- Instant attraction
- Lots of Spooky/ Paranormal elements
- A bonkers group of friends (Found family trope)
- Laugh out loud, crazy historical comedy

I adore Sally Thorne and everything she writes and though, this was very different from all her past books, it still had that charm and magic all of her books have.

This book made me feel so many emotions! Most of them were delightful and I was clutching my stomach- laughing so hard but it also had many emotional moments where I do admit I had tears running down my face because it was too relatable. It was an odd adventure but I adored it right from the beginning till the end!

Angelika Frankenstein quite frankly sneaked up on me. I didn’t expect to love her so much but I did, I do! She was of course, brilliant, smart and a very intelligent woman but also, she had a heart of gold. I loved that she fussed over her loved ones, gave them outrageously expensive gifts, took care of them and just loved with all her heart. It might seem dramatic but this was her brand of love and it was actually very sweet. She had always been unlucky in love and isolated from everyone and it broke my heart. I was so happy for her HEA because she deserved it the most!

The romance was very unusual but I loved Angelika and Will’s chemistry! I also loved the fact that both of them made each other better, especially Angelika. I loved her character growth and everything Will helped her with. I could feel their love for each other not only because it was written in words but also shown throughout, with their actions and that’s my favourite kind of romance.

Victor and Angelika’s bond was sweet, they were partners in crime and the best type of siblings! It showed how much they cared for each other but Victor took Angelika for granted too many times to count. I did like how it all ended and when Victor realised the wrongness of it all.

There were many side characters that contributed to the story. Lizzie was so funny and dramatic, I absolutely loved her. Adam was another peculiar character but he did provide some really funny moments so I liked him. There were others like Christopher, Clara and her baby, Sarah, Mary, Jacob, etc who were all delightful characters!
Their relationship was a lot like found family and it was truly heartwarming. Angelika had felt lonely almost all her life so seeing her with these sweet, adoring people who loved and appreciated her was just so nice!!

I have to say that one should go into this book without ‘serious’ expectations because there were lots of absurd things happening (that had me laughing like a maniac) but if someone is expecting a traditional rom-com, they’ll be disappointed. Even though it started out in a really unbelievable manner and continued to be nutty, I believe that in the heart of the story, there was lots of love, warmth and a very beautiful story of a woman who finds love in the most unconventional of ways and changes herself for better of all the people around her.

I will definitely recommend this uncommon spooky rom-com with some twisted up history and Bridgerton vibes to all my friends! It’s truly one of it’s kind and the plot was so unique!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for providing me with an e-arc of this delightful book!

POV: mostly single
Spice: 🌶 🌶 🌶

This book is unlike anything I’ve ever read! Sure, it is slightly creepy that Angelika “makes” her perfect match but that is part of the fun seeing as this is a Frankenstein re-telling. Somehow this book is slightly creepy, funny, and romantic all at the same time with some great lessons learned for all of the characters.

At first, I didn’t find that any of the characters were likable, even poor Will who was brought back to life by Angelika. However, they all have so much growth over the course of the book and I ended up loving Angelika most of all! She turns her selfishness around with the help of Will and once he figures himself out more he is really lovable as well.

Just in time for spooky season, this book is definitely a slow burn with a bit of a love triangle and a great cast of characters. It kept me on my toes and I really wasn’t sure how it was going to end. There is a HEA, but towards the end before we get that I was really sobbing and so completely invested in this crazy paranormal-ish story!

Thanks to NetGalley for this eARC!

This was weird, but fun! Sally Thorne describes this in her acknowledgements as "Frankenstein Fanfiction," and who knew this was a thing I might enjoy?? What can I say, the Frankensteins in this book are obviously nightmares, but they're better at the end of the book than the beginning and they also seem fun. I also liked Belladonna the pig.

Will I be contemplating if I could deal if someone resurrected me but with different body parts, for the purposed of marriage. I will be thinking about that. Quandary.

This is an unconventional funny, quirky rom-com based on the Frankenstein novel by Mary Shelley. It is so inventive and different and perfect for the upcoming Halloween season!. As I read it, I could picture this as a great movie!

Sally Thorne has given Victor Frankenstein a sister, Angelika who is a scientist like him, and together they create the perfect physical man from the parts of corpses of recently deceased men - this is based 0n Frankenstein after all! What started out as a scientific experiment to make a man for Angelika, without thought to consequences and impacts, turns into a journey of self-discovery for Angelika. Starting out as a self-absorbed wealthy young woman, Angelika becomes a likeable character as she falls in love with Will and questions the values and behaviors that used to guide her life. The secondary characters are funny and add a lot to the story’s humour - including Belladonna the pig - and, of course, the monster who Angelika’s brother, Victor creates, features in the story. At the very end, Mary Shelley is introduced as a budding writer who visits Victor, a cheeky nod to the novel that the author would write about Frankenstein.

A key part of the story revolves around figuring out who Will is - he has no memory of his former life - where he is from, etc. and around the romance between he and Angelika. It is a sweet romance that was very easy to route for. There is a love triangle with a military commander, and a crooked priest, and the story is interspersed with observations about religion and science, and inequalities between the classes, Even though the story is only told from Angelika’s point of view, I felt that the author did a good j0b fleshing out and describing the other characters, particularly Will.

I was intrigued by the inventive premise of this novel and I really liked how the author executed it. I was entertained and enjoyed reading it!

Thanks to Harper Collins Canada for this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

So I loved the hating game and was super excited about this book…but it was just not for me. This was a historical romance that had frankenstein themes with medicine and magic. Angelika is struggling to find a match where she lives so she decides to make a match instead and it doesn’t go exactly as she had planned.

This book was so hard for me to get through and I kept forcing myself to read it 😅 The only reason why this is even 3 stars is there was some semi decent smut thrown in throughout the story.

I think Sally Thorne excels at writing quirky fun characters. I really enjoyed this break from her usual contemporary books that have a more summer vibe. Autumn is my favourite time of year and I am so happy to see this trend of spooky romcoms popping up! This really set the tone for the best season of the year and was just cute and heart-warming! Looking forward to future books from Thorne in this genre. Give me a Dracula retelling next!

I tried, I reallyyyy tried to get into this one. I made it to 30% before I finally gave up. I could not STAND Angelika and frankly after 30% I was hoping something of the plot would come up and nothing grabbed me. Maybe I will try again one day but as of now my TBR stack is too massive to push my way through so this is a DNF for me.

Funny and a bit kooky with the right blend of humor and sweetness. Lonely Angelika builds herself a dream man with parts found at the morgue. While her brother's creation has bolted, Angelika's man Will wakes with no memory and a fierce attraction to Angelika. He's desperately trying to discover his past before being able to make any promises or advances towards Angelika. Lots of longing and loneliness here with a fun bit of mystery to discover Will's true identity.

ARC provided by NetGalley and Avon

I loved this book so much! Such fun fan fiction combining everything I love - a macabre fantasy regency era romance with humor! I binge read this in a day and couldn’t stop. I loved the characters and enjoyed the escape into their world.

This book was odd. There is no better way to put it. I got about 20% into the story, but Angelika and Victor are too macabre and strange to relate to. Even the love interest and his composition of different body parts, while I could tell meant to be comical just made my stomach upset. Additionally, the religious overtone was not enjoyable especially in a romance novel about a reanimated corpse.