Jeanette Winterson is one of those writers who constantly blow me away with her use of language. She also always makes me think a lot about her topics.

This book wasn't an exception.

While this is marketed as a retelling of Frankenstein, I'm not sure that's a good description. Half of the novel deals with the amazing Mary Shelley in the process before and after writing her most famous novel. The other half is about Ry Shelley, a trans doctor who becomes involved with Victor Stein, a scientist working in Artificial Intelligence and is trying to test the limits between human and machine. So, more than a retelling, I'd say there's a sort of a dialogue between this book and Frankenstein . I loved these parallels, that made me think deeply about all sort of issues with AI (I often think it's a bit creepy, because it's so close to humanity, but very uncannily so).

While I enjoyed this book a lot, I have a small caveat about it. I was enjoying the 19th century sections a lot more than the "present day" sections. Largely because I absolutely adore the Romantics, and of course I wanted to read more about them. Not that Ry's parts werent' good (they were great), but my personal interests leaned towards Mary.

If you like imaginative, creative, and utterly beautiful prose, Winterson is always a great choice.