Finished this 14 minutes before my loan expired💪 I’ll give myself an extra day to decide on a rating. For now, I’ll just say that, regardless of what my overall rating turns out to be, this was intriguing from beginning to end, and the author clearly loves the original Frankenstein story. Sometimes this made for some awkward spoon-feeding of the themes, but Tsai understands it on a fundamental level for sure and that extends to their characters.

I thought the POV switches were subpar? All three POVs more or less have the same writing style, and if it weren’t for the changes in personality reflected in their thoughts then I wouldn’t know who’s talking without a chapter name. Perhaps Ash’s writing can be excused, though, because dia’s “POV” is essentially a recollection of the story dia told an unreliable narrator? It didn’t feel like that interchangeability was intentional, though. I do think that Ash’s genuine thought process was shown and the storytelling plot device was just used as the reason to include it. (I’m assuming so, based on how the narrative treats dia.)

The writing also isn’t subtle, sometimes (often?) to the point of repetition. Particularly in Z’s chapters, where the first half is establishing her motivations for creating Ash. I’d be able to garner the message of a character’s parallels from a sentence or a paragraph, but a chapter later it would be reiterated, and I kind of hate that it seemed like the readerbase wasn’t trusted to pick up the inner workings of the characters? (This especially annoyed me when Plum started drawing comparisons to Z and Ash. She would constantly stress whenever she’d find more of herself in either of them and… I knew that already, lmao???) However, I thought that style of writing worked best towards the end of Plum’s POV, as she struggled through her pregnancy. To me, it worked in capturing the patterns she noticed in her life, and that led to her current (toxic) situation with Z. In those moments where she’s kind of dissecting the dysfunction of her life, it’s probably more important to be on-the-nose if she’s having a couple of breakthroughs (which she was).

On the topic of the writing style: yes, it does still try to emulate Shelley’s writing despite the difference in time period. (Both in the events of the story, and when it was written.) Sometime moments I thought it was an interesting homage, others I thought it made the dialogue stilted, but that was particularly in Z’s chapters— there were… occasional 19th-century formalities at different points in her chapters? I understand the creative choice behind how her POV was structured, though, I just didn’t personally vibe with it. I’m also still trying to wrap my head around what I think of Ash as a representation of the monster, because while I feel the ableism around dia needs to be addressed, Z isn’t meant to be a good person and her opinions are frequently disagreed with. (I do acknowledge that some of the horror about dia, though, comes from dia’s origins and not just dia being disfigured/disabled.)

The ending was so abrupt?! Why did we skip right to the epilogue! So much must’ve had to happen off-page, wtf!

But, I really loved the queer representation! Plum, Z and even Ash categorize themselves in queer terms from their heritage rather than western terminology, and while specifically Plum and Z lived the struggles (and felt the expectations) of women, they weren’t strictly defined by that gender. (I can’t help but wonder if some of Plum’s uneasiness about her body towards the end was a bit of gender dysphoria?) I can’t speak in-depth on the Asian representation, but it was interesting seeing the parallel biracial narratives, and the points of contention that came not just from having a white parent that needed to unlearn their racism, but also from navigating the scientific world as female-presenting people.

I have mixed feelings about the execution of “Unwieldy Creatures”, but I came here from JesseOnYoutube’s recommendation, and I can see why they adored it so much. I’m a little surprised it isn’t talked about more often, to be honest?! It’s a very creative interpretation of Frankenstein, and as far as sci-fi goes, has the most scientific-sounding explanations for all the shit that unfolds. (There were several pages of further reading I didn’t have time to copy down, as much research went into writing this as the average fanfic.) (That is a compliment btw. I saw someone look into what space tasted like just so they could write a monsterfucking fic)