Uncomfortable

Whew. What garbage.

Sally Thorne, for a while, was the IT girl when it came to contemporary romance. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but she does not deserve that moniker anymore after this.

Angelika Frankenstein has an interesting premise, but the execution of said premise is one of the worst things I’ve read this year.

Angelika is the sister of the famous Victor Frankenstein, and despite being described as attractive and intelligent, she has no suitors. Rather than living her life alone, she decides to team up with her brother, Victor, to build her own perfect man.

Everything that worked about the brilliant Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is wholly tossed aside in this novel. In the original, everything worked so well because it was a Science Fiction story. Victor is attempting to further the known world’s abilities and science, so his creation is a moralistic question regarding what man can do vs. what man should do. When you add the element of romance to this idea, it becomes less about furthering society and more about the selfish desires of a sex-starved woman who wants perfection only for herself. Victor is a megalomaniac obsessed with the idea of making this advancement; Angelika is a spoiled rich kid who wants to create life only for her enjoyment.

There are so many issues with consent in this book and what we are allowed to do with the bodies of the dead that I honestly couldn’t handle it. There’s no chemistry between a woman with all the power and an amnesiac whose only goal is to remember who he was before she engineered him back to life. He has no agency, and we’re supposed to see this as a fun romp of a rom-com. It’s absolutely ridiculous and feels gross. She also digs up corpses with her brother to find one with an adequately sized-dick. Not sure about you, but I’ve never had “search for a penis on the body of a dead man” to be on my “Things to do with my family” bucket list, but to each their own, I guess.

I found this entirely intolerable, and I want to warn everyone I know never to bother with this book.

Title: Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match
Author: Sally Thorne
Format: Paperback
Pages: 384
ISBN: 9780062912831

Three Descriptors: Consent Mess, Uncomfortable, Adaptation/Retelling