I have been fascinated by Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe and their circle and with the origin story of Frankenstein so I highly anticipated reading this book and oh did it meet my expectations. I love it so much, if. you are a fan of Frankenstein I would highly recommend.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

Wow! Few books that I've read recently are as pathologically compelling as this one was. A recount of the woman who starts at Mary Godwin and ends as Mary Shelley. The book opens in her teens, with Mary being idealistic, bored and cynical. When Percy Shelley enters her life, it instantly changes - his magnetism, passion and ideals transform every aspect of her life. Both good and bad. Told through diary entries and letters, we learn all about Mary and those around her to an incredible and insightful extent. A must for anyone studying either Shelley, or is just interested in the unique voice of a thoroughly modern 19th century woman.

Monsters by Sharon Dogar is a retelling of the life shared by Mary Shelley, Sir Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Jane Godwin. Bysshe, a poet, believed in free love. Mary, backed by the feminist ideas by her late mother, found Bysshe's way of thinking fascinating and she and Jane decide to join him in creating a community for those who want to follow the ideas of free love. This retelling recounts their journies across Europe and back, children being born, loss, love, and Mary's writing of Frankenstein.

I really wanted to like this book. Frankenstein is one of my favorite classic novels and a chance to learn about Mary Shelley's life, even if a fictional retelling appealed to me. Unfortunately Monsters: The passion and loss that created Frankenstein fell completely flat in its retelling.

The whole book is written in the present tense. This is something I can overlook, but even flashbacks were written in the present tense which made things so confusing that I often had to turn back and reread what I had just read in order to make sense of what was going on in the novel.

It felt extremely clunky to read and had no real flow. I thought a novel about Mary Shelley and the creation of Frankenstein would be told from Mary's point of view strictly, however, the book is third-person omniscient, leaving no thought by any character untold. It often felt like I had whiplash trying to keep up with the rapid-fire PoV changes.

The portrayal of Mary, Bysshe, and Jane are all extremely unlikeable. I'm not sure if it was on purpose, and though Dogar expressed she had a soft spot for Jane, she was still on par with how dull and pretentious and unlikeable the other portrayals were.

I would not recommend this book for a good retelling of Mary Shelley's life. I haven't done the amount of research that I'm sure Dogar has done, and the timeline of her life was interesting, but the minor details that filled everything in between were lacking in passion and excitement.

I'm a big fan of Frankenstein/Mary Shelley so I always gobble up any rewrites or new stories that spring up around it. This was really fun!

A story about Frankenstein, two youngs girls set out on a wild adventure!
A great story of rule breaking and radical ideas

3/5 🌟 I found myself not being able to really love this book I really struggled to get through, it just wasn't for me at this time sadly, but I can tell this book is going to be loved by many such an interesting concept and the cover is just eye-catching and drew me to it straight away. Thank you for the chance to read this book, the book was very unique and I'm so happy others will get to really enjoy and emerse themselves into this story.

I was extremely excited to see Monsters by Sharon Dogar on NetGalley, because I’ve been obsessed with Mary Shelley’s life since studying Frankenstein at university in 2017. Expecting a novelisation of her earlier years to bring to life all of the people I’ve studied so closely, I thought this was bound to be one of my top reads of 2019.

Unfortunately, Monsters was an absolute struggle. I knew as soon as I read the first chapter that it was going to be hard – it’s written in the present tense, which is an unusual choice and doesn’t lend itself well to storytelling – but it was like pulling teeth. I’m a fast reader, and it took me almost three weeks of constant reading to get through this story.

Yes, it’s important to focus on the fact that Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, completely disowned her when she decided to run away with Percy Bysshe Shelley. It’s also important that they were riddled with debt and had to flee locations across the continent when they couldn’t afford to pay the landlords. But the majority of the book is wholly centred on their monetary struggles, leaving the suicides of both Fanny and Harriet to happen in the last five percent (and for the deaths of two of Mary and Percy’s children, and the death of Percy himself, to happen in the afterword).

However, I do applaud Sharon Dogar for choosing the version of events she feels most likely to have happened and committing to it. A lot of authors would have written the romance between Bysshe and Claire far more subtly, as evidence of their suspected passion has been almost completely destroyed due to the removal of pages from Mary’s journal. It’s a brave move to make the events seem far more clear-cut, although it’s important to take it with a pinch of salt because there is no proof that Dogar’s version of their story is true.

If you’re interested in Mary Shelley but are planning on learning about her by reading Monsters because it isn’t non-fiction, I would highly recommend Charlotte Gordon’s Romantic Outlaws. Yes, it’s a non-fiction book, but it’s told in a narrative style that makes it more gripping than most stories (and 100% more engaging than Monsters). It also tells the story of Mary’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, by running their lives parallel to each other, comparing and contrasting the events that they get up to.

I wish I loved the writing more - it wasn't bad but I felt distant from the MC and wasn't as gripped as I wanted to be. Maybe a reflection of when the book was set, but it didn't grab me.

This book follows Mary Shelley from a young age as she meets Percy Shelley, runs away with him, and eventually gets round to writing Frankenstein. From the list of references in the back I assume the author did a lot of research into the lives and history of this famous couple. They weren’t really likeable people. Having their own view of how the world should work, and being annoyed when society shuns them for it, they also treat friends and family quite badly. I liked the conversations Mary had with Percy about love and relationships, and lust without love, as well as homosexual relationships as rumours about Byron abound (who is also a bastard, but this was already known). There were a lot of repetitive passages though, as certain sentiments and situations get repeating themselves, and for part of the story it felt like it could have been told a lot more succintly, so that there wasn’t any loss of flow. All in all I enjoyed this book.

[Note - I had also received a copy of this book in a subscription box]

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me access to such a complex and fascinating read. Some of the stories surrounding Frankenstein are well-known, and I admit to finding the book at its most absorbing around this time. However, in this we have an imagined account of the life of Mary Goodwin, her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley and a character I’d never heard of - half-sister Jane/Claire.
Initially the book felt slow in approach. A meticulous and, at times, off-putting focus on the build-up to the relationship between these evidently fascinating characters. There’s a clear sense of the time and beliefs around these characters being brought to life. It was definitely interesting to see how their lives may have intertwined and linked.
While the story was fascinating, I found myself intensely irritated by Shelley and the selfishness with which he acted. The attempt to show his appeal and positive traits is clear, but it didn’t quite succeed.

Since studying Frankenstein and the romantics at University I have been fascinated by Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe and their circle and with the origin story of Frankenstein so I was extremely anxious to read this book. And I am glad to say that it met my high expectations.

Sharon Dogar's retelling of Mary's life is both beautifully written and well researched and you really do get a sense of the tumultuous times in which Mary, Percy and Jane were living. I liked that we had the different perspectives of various characters and could experience both their thoughts and the way in which they were perceived by others. Although sometimes the rapid shift between characters could be a little confusing.

You also get a sense of how difficult life would have been for Mary, running off with a married man at such a young age and becoming an outcast; I always had such a romantic view of her life at this time but it was obviously extremely difficult for her trying to live by the ideals of her future husband with no money and no family to support.

I would really recommend this book especially if you are a fan of Mary Shelley and or Percy Shelley or if you like historical novels or literary retellings.

E Arc received from Netgally in exchange for an honest review.

There was a lot to enjoy here and I found the narrative pretty compelling, but I thought that the book was overly long, which made things drag a little. It tells the story of Mary Shelley and her stepsister, Claire Clairmont and their polyamorous relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley. The subject matter is very interesting and it is clear that Dogar has done a lot of research into the characters involved. Unfortunately, this translates into a lot of unnecessary repetition - particularly part 2, which I found really hard to get through as the same things were discussed throughout. It was fascinating to me that so much time was spent on this section when very little time was spent on discussing the creation of Frankenstein, which is pretty much why most people would be reading the book in the first place. Some of the choices made in the narrative structure felt strange to me. Having said that, the prose itself was good and the characterisation was detailed, but overall the narrative was just too long for my taste and focused too deeply on certain aspects at the expense of other, more interesting ones.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I have never read a Frankenstein retelling before, but this was really AMAZING!!

The gothic genre is one I tend to stay away from, because it can either be done well or turn out completely rubbish. However, this one really worked. The writing pulled me into this deep underworld and held me until the last page...

Highly recommend!

A wonderful story filled with emotion. The way the author makes you love and hate the characters is awesome.
A book worth reading.

Another fantastic read this month was Monsters by Sharon Dogar. A young adult historical fiction about Mary Shelley. One of the things I really appreciated and loved about this novel was the fact that almost all the characters were given their voices, there was no obvious bad guy. There were bad decisions and its consequences. I really appreciated the lack of extra drama between Mary, Percy and Jane any more than necessary. For a fictionalised version of history, this holds really well as a retelling of sorts.

Despite it being called/ categorized as young adult, there are some heavy themes in the book. After all, being young in their time and being young now is vastly different. There’s Percy Shelley’s ideas of love, there’s loss of children and overall suffering of the characters involved. While nothing is sanitized for the comfort of young adult readers, it’s not quite as grim as all that.

I really liked the characterizations overall, then there’s the fact that everyone is given a flawed and realistic actions and reactions. Granted I am not an expert in Mary Shelley’s life but to read it as it was written in the book gave me some insights into her life. There were certain things I wasn’t aware of and this helped me gain knowledge of that as well as enjoy the history of it all. Fans of Frankenstein and those who are interested Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley or even Byron should find this an interesting read.

Monsters: The Passion & Loss That Created Frankenstein is a novel chronicling the life and times of writer Mary Shelley and the making of her masterpiece, Frankenstein, but it also explores radical ideas, utopian ideals and her love for poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, which had not been given the blessing from her father. It is told from the perspectives of Mary and her sister Jane; we experience the intense highs and tragic lows in their complicated lives. Some of the topics that feature in the book are jealousy, sibling rivalry, sexism, misogyny, feminism, angst, love, loss and undying hope for a brighter future.

However, the book is rather long and could've been tightened up to create more of an impact on the reader; it dragged a little in places and got repetitive at times. That being said, this is a fascinating character study which doesn't have a plot per se, but instead, it follows the characters on their journey through life. We explore the relationships between Mary and her family and associates; those that shaped her life, and it really is very emotive as they take the rough with the smooth. Each character is intricately built and their voices sing from the pages making them come alive. You celebrate with them their joys and commiserate with them with the lows, and many of the issues women have with regards to equality are still, unfortunately, very relevant today. The author's meticulous research is clear to see throughout the book This is a compelling piece of historical fiction.

Many thanks to Andersen for an ARC.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one of my favourite books, and the story of it's creator is almost as strange and fascinating as the book itself, so I was eager to read Sharon Dogar's Monsters, a fictional account of the real life relationships that shaped Mary Shelley's life. Her mother, who died in childbirth was a feminist and revolutionary and a well known scholar and intellectual, as was her father, and Mary grew up in a household of radicals. When her father remarried, she never really came to terms with it, and her relationship with her step sister Jane was contentious at best. When both girls fall for married poet Percy Bysse Shelley , and elope to France, Mary's relationship with her father is destroyed, as is the reputation of the young ladies. Dreaming of creating a Utopian society where women have equal rights and free love is to be celebrated, the idealistic trio find themselves becoming tangled in a web of love, lust, betrayal and bitterness.
A fascinating character study, I really liked that the author gave equal attention to Mary and the less well known Jane, and hearing the story from both perspectives really gave a feeling of how complicated their lives were, filled with great joy and terrible tragedy. Despite already being familiar with the basic story, I was still gripped by this account.
I read an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I have always idealised the unconventional, bohemian life choices that Mary and Percy Shelley made. I no longer do. Perhaps this story is closer to reality: that they were unlikable, know-it-all, self important brats. The Shelleys and their companions were teenagers and young adults after all, and here they are depicted to be behaving like all self entitled teenagers do.

The story focuses on teenage angst, drama, jealousies and sibling rivalry. The continually changing POVs and everyone having the same arguments and repeating the same things gets tedious very quickly, and the book is looong. It dragged and was a struggle to complete.

Even though it is the authors interpretation of their lives, this story has destroyed all the romanticised views I previously had about the Shelly's unorthodox and modern lives and I don't think I can ever go back to my prior happier views.

This review will be posted on my blog, Foxes and Fairy Tales on Sun 3rd Feb 2019.
https://foxesfairytale.wordpress.com/2019/02/03/arc-review-monsters

The problem with historical fiction based so centrally on a real-life event or person is that the plot itself in unchangeable (although I hate to say predictable) and therefore the story must hang far more heavily on other aspects: such as characterisation, pacing and voice.

The characters initially felt a little flat to me, but within a few chapters Dogar seemed to find her footing and they really came to life. Mary and Jane’s (different but similar) insecurities over living in another’s shadow, whirlwind romances and jealousies are vivid and captured so that the reader can really feel both their pain and their joy. I thought that the author did a really good job of balancing her depictions of the sisters: neither is wholly right or wrong, and both are presented as complex individuals.

The pacing moves at a steady clip from (with plenty of time for philosophical musings) so that I never felt like there was any lagging. I think it this kind of almost-biography it’d be all too easy to get bogged down in timeframe and details, but Dogar knows what she’s doing here. She’s carefully chosen which elements to include and which to cut so that the plot seems uncluttered whilst still being fluid.

However, at times it felt the author was more interested in Mary’s mother (Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist philosopher) than Mary herself. And, to be fair, Wollstonecraft is an absolutely fascinating and remarkable woman, but I almost feel Dogar could have written a book about her instead. It feels a little too much like they wanted the feminist musings of Wollstonecraft but the marketability of Shelley. Dogar clearly has a good knowledge and interest in the time and people involved, but sometimes to the degree that it impacts the story in a negative way. There were several points where interesting historical facts, famous name-drops or lines of quotations felt out of place either because of the character they came from or because the people referenced had little connection to what was actually happening in this specific story at that moment.

While Monsters wasn’t a perfect fit for me, it definitely had its strengths and I think readers looking for an introduction to Mary Shelly, or to enjoy it as a straightforward piece of historical fiction, will probably get a lot more out of it.