Monsters Book Review

Monsters by Sharon Dogar

From Goodreads: 1814: Mary Godwin, the sixteen-year-old daughter of radical socialist and feminist writers, runs away with a dangerously charming young poet – Percy Bysshe Shelley. From there, the two young lovers travel a Europe in the throes of revolutionary change, through high and low society, tragedy and passion, where they will be drawn into the orbit of the mad and bad Lord Byron.
But Mary and Percy are not alone: they bring Jane, Mary’s young step-sister. And she knows the biggest secrets of them all . . .

Told from Mary and Jane’s perspectives, Monsters is a novel about radical ideas, rule-breaking love, dangerous Romantics, and the creation of the greatest Gothic novel of them all: Frankenstein.

Have you ever read a book and can’t decide if you like it or not? I’ve just finished reading Monsters and honestly I’m not sure what to make of it. The book is so utterly bizarre that I haven’t managed to yet form an opinion.

I wasn’t really sure going into it that it would be a book for me, but I was entranced by the prospect of a historical YA about Mary Shelley’s life prior to writing Frankenstein. What we get here though, is not at all what I was expecting. The novel delves a lot into her personal life, and although I can’t tell if parts are embellished or if it sticks firmly to the facts… it just rings weird to me. Basically, Monsters is about Mary’s great love affair with Percy Bysshe Shelley. I imagined some kind of romantic meeting of minds, a lot of gooey poetry slipped under doors and such stuff. Instead, what you get here is a strange fight between the feminist beliefs that Mary holds and the belief in ‘free love’ that Bysshe wishes to pursue in his life. He might agree about the notion of equality of sexes, but he’s kinda an ass the whole way through, and his beliefs clash a lot with Mary’s values and desires.

I did find some of the debates in this book very interesting, and towards the end of the novel I was moved by a lot of the tragedy that takes place throughout the narrative. That being said, as you can probably already tell from me calling Bysshe an ass, I was not enchanted by any of the characters. At times I sympathised with them, particularly Mary and Jane, who are essentially trapped by their desires and by their position in society once they run off with a married man. Society refuses to acknowledge them, and so they must stick with Bysshe or suffer the consequences of their rebellious decision. He seems aware of this and at times it is something he unwittingly uses against them. He doesn’t seem at all concerned or bothered what others around him want, and he pushes on with his beliefs in spite of others’ reluctance to join in. Mary is someone I frequently felt pity for, although at times she is so unbelievably naive [running off with a man who abandons his wife and is polyamorous when she is not] and incredibly cruel to other characters that I also really hated her. Jane, likewise, was at times woefully ignorant and childish, and I disliked her a lot for getting in the way and thinking it was a good idea to jump feet first into this whole mess. Both of them think very unkind things about each other, and it is difficult to read because of it. Although I suppose I only sometimes wanted to bang their idiot heads together, while I’d have been happy if Bysshe had perhaps been knocked off a cliff or something at the start of the novel.

There were moments where I got into the story a lot and wanted to learn more about Mary Shelley’s world. However, I wasn’t a big fan of the omniscient diary style narration. It frequently jumps in third person from character to character, suggesting that the writer knows how everyone is feeling at all times. It makes it very frustrating when characters are keeping secrets from one another, because the reader always knows where the novel is heading next.

Overall, I’m giving Monsters a 5/10 stars. I did enjoy bits of it, but my enjoyment was marred by my dislike for most of the characters and my desire to run Bysshe over with a cart. I also wasn’t the biggest fan of the writing style and found the whole plot a bit bizarre, although I’m not sure if I can disagree with that if it is historically accurate.

Has anyone else read this book or plans to? Please feel to share any thoughts or opinions in the comment section below [but please, try and keep it spoiler free]

Until next time ❤