Mundie Moms

Thursday, September 27, 2018

MARY'S MONSTER: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein by Lita Judge / Book Review #MarysMonster #Frankenstein


Written & Illustrated by: Lita Judge
Published by: Roaring Brook 
Released on: January 30th, 2018
Ages: 15 & up
Purchase Links
Add it to Goodreads
Source: arc from the publisher in exchange for my honest review
Rating: 5 stars

A young adult biography of Frankenstein's profound young author, Mary Shelley, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of its publication, told through free verse and 300+ full-bleed illustrations.

Mary Shelley first began penning Frankenstein as part of a dare to write a ghost story, but the seeds of that story were planted long before that night. Mary, just nineteen years old at the time, had been living on her own for three years and had already lost a baby days after birth. She was deeply in love with famed poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a mad man who both enthralled and terrified her, and her relationship with him was rife with scandal and ridicule. But rather than let it crush her, Mary fueled her grief, pain, and passion into a book that the world has still not forgotten 200 years later.

Dark, intense, and beautiful, this free-verse novel with over 300 pages of gorgeous black-and-white watercolor illustrations is a unique and unforgettable depiction of one of the greatest authors of all time.


This is a heartbreaking, hauntingly well written story that will stay with you long after you read it. I've always been fascinated by Mary Shelley's story, but never have I felt so much emotion towards her, and all that she not only endured, but the treatment of her (which was common and the norm during her time period). I wasn't excepting this dark, intense read to emotional grip me like it did. Between Lita's writing, and the illustrations, the emotions, and the mood are captured well within this book's pages.

Labels