The classics have always held a soft spot in my heart, encompassing a large portion of my reading as a kid and teen.  I didn’t discriminate between genres, reading anything and everything I could get my little bookworm hands on in an attempt to escape a world around me that hadn’t been very kind. I was especially drawn to women writing books, looking up to them with a sort of awed reverence that their male colleagues didn’t quite elicit from me. 

Even now as an adult, two decades from when I read them, books like Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Jane Austen’s Persuasion have stayed with me, the themes of love and feminism and family being very influential to me even today. But none have come close to the impact that reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein had on me as an eleven-year-old. 

Shelley’s story about a brilliant and ambitious young man creating a creature so disturbingly wrong that he could barely stomach looking at it is absolutely tragic, and I’ve been haunted by it probably more than any other book I’ve ever read. How would things have been different if Frankenstein and the world had reacted to him in a more positive, less harmful way? Whether you want to label it as science fiction or horror, the real beauty of it for me is in the honest portrayal in a “monster” of so many very real, human emotions: rejection, pain, resentment, loneliness, anger, and hatred. 

I think most of us can agree on the fact that classics become classics for a reason: the messages these stories convey are often relevant regardless of the amount of time that passes, with enough universal appeal and relatability that they go on to inspire and be emulated through future generations. Frankenstein checks all the boxes, the haunting implications and questions left after the ending still very apropos of our current social climate even today. What does it really mean to be a “monster”?

Over the years, many books have come out that are inspired by the original Frankenstein in various ways. In honor of the Dead Head Reviews Monster Mash Birthday Bash, I put together a short list of 5 books (plus a bonus!) I’d recommend to both people who love the original, and people who maybe didn’t find it as heartbreaking as I did. These books have a wide range, so there’s a little bit of something for everyone!

5 Monstrous Reads for Fans of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

1. Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein by Lita Judge

Mary’s Monster sets out to tell the tale of Frankenstein’s creator more so than the monster she created. It dives into Mary Shelley’s own painful history and past written in verse, and the tragic prose is accompanied by really detailed, stylized art on each page. Each watercolor illustration is done in black and white, keeping in line with the classic, gothic feel of the original book - it’s so moody, and so good!

2. The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

If you’re familiar with the original book, you already know the character of Elizabeth Frankenstein, a young orphan girl taken in by the Frankenstein family that grows up to marry Victor himself. This young adult retelling is from Elizabeth’s perspective, and in this, she’s much more cunning and integral to the story than we may have first seen. I love the way White’s story both fills in some of the blanks we’re left with in Victor’s account of things from the original story, while remaining completely original and providing a totally unique perspective.

3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones // Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

This is a little bonus two-for, and it’s because these two books in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series go together. They focus on two specific characters from the series, Jack & Jill, twin girls who find a doorway leading to a stairwell that takes them to a new world called The Moors. This terrifying place is where the main characters from stories like Dracula and Frankenstein would feel completely at home, and it’s one of my favorite worlds from the series in general. Jack and Jill are identical, but still very different, and Jack’s story in particular leans heavily into something that Mary Shelley herself would probably love to have read.

4. Destroyer by Victor LaValle

In Victor LaValle’s Frankenstein-inspired graphic novel, Mary Shelley’s classic story melds perfectly with the sociopolitical problems of today in this fresh take on a story so many of us already know very well. With gritty, moody art by Dietrich Smith, LaValle’s brilliance within both the science-fiction and horror genres combine with real world issues and pain to create a very compelling, dark tale about loss, anger, and how far over the edge both of those things can push a person.

5. Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi

Translated from Arabic, this is a modern-day retelling of the original set in the US occupation of Iraq, where the ‘monster’ of this story is made from the body parts of victims of war. Dealing with similar themes of revenge and pain, this one is pretty heavy - but it’s interspersed with a bit of levity in the form of dark humor throughout. There’s a pretty wide cast of minor characters here, and a big focus on the line between guilt and innocence. Definitely a compelling read, and I couldn’t leave it off the list!

By Cassie Daley
Twitter: @CtrlAltCassie
Website: www.letsgetgalactic.com