Wanted to listen to this one since I love Mary Shelley but could have passed on this one. In Mathilda, the title character narrates from her deathbed the tragic story of her life. Having lost her mother at birth, her father leaves her in the care of a cold aunt and disappears for 16 years. He returns, only to eventually confess a secret that tears both of them apart. I didn't have many feelings for the characters and while this is a very short story, I was ready to be done with it quickly.

I was curious... and I read (listened) it. The historical context at the beginning is key to understanding, accepting, and bearing with the book. The narration was very good. The Drama, was, well, dramatic, just how you would picture a book from this era.

Thanks to netgalley for this experience.

2.5 stars.

This was a weird little book. I am really not sure what else to say about it. Interesting from a historical perspective maybe?

I was initially annoyed by the introduction but having finished the book, think that it was a valuable inclusion and am not sure I would have made it through without the context offered by the introduction.

Excellent narration by Frances Butt, and the introduction was really helpful in understanding the context behind the book a little better. I wish there was some (more) information on the annexes? I didn’t understand the exact connection of all of them with the main story other than the general themes

Could not stomach the actual subject matter once it became clear what it was. I'll stick with Frankenstein.

Babygirl.... the DrAmAtIcS! I can see why this was published much later, because yeah, this was, problematic at best. Very yikes. This is why you need friends and people to ground you in life. I get she was innocent and all, and the most sheltered girlie in all the land, but there wasn't a whole lot of reflection on the actions of the parentage of hers as a whole.

I also understand that this was a very literary take on Mathilda and Mary Shelley as a whole, but the dissemination at the beginning versus the source material felt a little like a stretch? But I'm just a communiy college educated reader, so what do I know?

Thank you to Highbridge Audio and Netgalley for an Audio copy.

I loved Mary Shellys Frankenstein so when I saw that I can get another book of hers as an audiobook I didn’t think twice and started the book... without knowing what it's about… To say I was shocked when I understood it’s about incest is to say nothing. I did enjoy the book though! The story is beautifully written, the narration was also very good.

This book is filled with pain, grief, longing, misunderstanding, death and sorrow. It is deeply emotional, telling the story of Mathilda's unfortunate life and her strange relationship with her father.

I liked that the stories which were mentioned in the introduction were also added at the end.

Thank you NetGalley and Highbridge Audio for this ARC,

Mathilda, by Mary Shelley, was… interesting, to say the least. I can’t say that I liked it, but I will always be up to read a classic, even more so a classic written by THE Mary Shelley.

Kudos to Frances Butt, the narrator of this novella. I loved their voice.

I appreciated the contextual information in the introduction and found the additional writings in the appendices to be a valuable enhancement to the listening experience. The narration was engaging and well-suited to the tone of the work. Overall, I’d rate this audiobook a 3.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was REALLY good. Absolutely loved the beginning to include the history and scandal behind the potential publication. The publisher deciding to ignore these in 1959 is truly a hero.
Reading this is an opportunity to face our past histories and revel in our change in humanity, and also how stagnant we are as a species today.
This story explores humanity to its core and temptations of our animalistic tendencies to face societal norms. We also get the opportunity to explore the psyche of humanity when placed in these situations, romanticizing suicide and feminism.
This story really touches you to the core if you allow it.

The first quarter of this was basically a thesis on the book. Mathilda itself was well written, and intriguing in a taboo sense, but in combination with the audio narrator it was incredibly dramatic/theatric and I was often annoyed by it. I didnt continue the rest of the audio which also includes the Mourner for this reason. Thanks Highbridge audio and NetGalley for the ARC

Oh! Ok! Now I know why this one was hidden for some time. This book made me feel pretty icky, but Shelley is a great writer.

I’m left thinking about a lot of things though, and have a lot of questions.

Thank you to Netgalley and Highbridge Audio for allowing me to listen to an ARC of this audiobook. I've never read anything by Mary Shelley and know her as the author of Frankenstein. This book begins with a very long introduction, which I really appreciated. It grounded me in her era, her marriage to Shelley, and her political beliefs, particularly incest and suicide, which are expressed in this book. That all helped me appreciate Mathilda. and the three short stories that follow it. Frances Butt, the narrator, read the story as if Mathilda was always in a state of high anxiety. I'm sure she was a lot of the time.
Mathilda's mother died in childbirth. Her father sent her away to be raised by schools and others. She wasn't treated very well. She finally met her father when he called her home at 16. She adored him. And all went well for awhile until he started ignoring her and she didn't know what she had done wrong.
Honestly, I had to push myself to finish the story. I think it was the narrator and her really annoying tone of voice. I wanted to give up on Mathilda when really I wanted to get rid of Frances But. I'm glad I read it, it was so hard for women to get published back then and probably because of Frankenstein, Shelley's work has survived to today. I think it great that a whole new generation gets to read her and compare writing from 200 years ago to today.

I was very excited to listen to this new audio version of this story, but I was really let down. First of all, it starts with an hour of academic claptrap about how the incest in this book is really about renegotiating interior and exterior borders in a climate of global expansion, and of course, white supremacy. Honestly terrible and full of itself. But when I got to the story, I found it nearly unlistenable. The narrator speaks in this overdone way that made it extremely hard for the words to really land in my brain. It's excessively dramatized and there is weird pacing. Very unnatural way of speaking. I can't rate the story because I couldn't make it through this audiobook. I hope to read the story or listen to another audio version in the future, and will rate it for content when I do so.

Ah, Mary Shelley, you deserved the whole world. I adored this audiobook! The narrator did a fantastic job of bringing it to life and was very engaging. To be writing such a story, especially being a woman, at her time. It’s incredibly inspiring! She never got to see this one published as her father kept it locked away. It’s a must-read classic and it’s only short! An excellent novella on grief.

Insufferably weepy, both in tone and audiobook narration. Is it messed up that her dad was in love with her? Yes. Does the writing in this book make me care about the emotional impact of this violation? No. If you're going to write about such a traumatic thing, you absolutely have to be able to convey the gravity of it, which I do not think this book accomplished. Sure, the character was wrecked by the discovery, but she was so lacking in any sort of personality beyond loving her father, that I just couldn't see her as if she was a real person experiencing this trauma. It was all so one note.

Eerily reminiscent of Lolita and that comparison alone speaks volumes. Honestly, an unsettling read for such a short story. It leaves you feeling gutted and questioning the boundaries of love and obsession.

Second novel written by Shelley and it is dark and mysterious. Full of strong desires for love and death. Introduced by Deanna Koretsky, we get an insight to the themes covered in this novel. Very interesting.

Well written and well narrated novel (I listened to the audiobook. Strong characters in the dark novel. We have desire, longing, love and death. Quite a mystery.

i wish mary shelley had the opportunity to publish this in her lifetime with more edits as this is super strong in so many parts. it’s an incredibly depressing book with pretty much no happy moments for matilda; her fathers incestuous feelings towards her, her own suicidal ideation, and the pessimism she has for the relationships around her are all fighting to be the most tremendous sadness that plagues her.

This story was interesting, nothing can ever top Frankenstein for me but I'm glad I got to read the story finally. It is definitely a lesser known story by Shelley. The narrator did an excellent job.