Cover Image: Unnatural Creatures

Unnatural Creatures

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Member Reviews

This was wonderfully dark, gothic and atmospheric which is exactly my choice for a perfect read.
This follows the women in Victor Frankensteins life, makes them strong characters and gives them a voice, I liked the feminist element in this
The story is gripping and I read this within two days as I couldn’t stop listening!
If you loved Frankenstein this is a great modern take on the book, if you haven’t read it you will like it if you like gothic, dark fiction
Really liked the narrator too, she did a great job conveying all the characters and the atmosphere

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This is a really interesting take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and I really loved that the women involved get a voice and we see their point of views. However I didn't enjoy this as much as I expected to, I felt this dragged slightly and fell a little flat. Although obviously Frankenstein is a lot to live up to and I did enjoy this I just wasn't as interested/absorbed into the plot as I thought I would be.

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Thank you to NetGalley and Muse Publishing LLC for the opportunity to listen rage and review this arc audiobook which is available for purchase now.

Let me Preface this by saying Frankenstein is my #1 favorite book of all time so I am hyper critical of books that reimagine it. However this book? This book was awesome. It is told from the perspectives of 3 women in Victor Frankenstein’s life. His mother, Caroline, his bride, Elizabeth and the maid Justine. You see the destruction of their lives because of Victor. My favorite was Justine. Her pain and rage were visceral! It is a must read for those who like gothic horror told from the feminine perspective

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Thank you Net Galley for an audio ARC of Unnatural Creatures by Kris Waldherr. This is somewhat of a Frankenstein retelling, centering around the 3 women in Frankenstein's life. This was really good. Great writing at hand here, with a fantastic narrator!

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Waldherr's Unnatural Creatures faithfully follows and reconstructs the stories of three women central to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Victor's mother Caroline, his fiance Elizabeth, and the ill-fated maid Justine is framed for William's murder in the original. Sure to be a hit with Frankenstein devotees, the novel breathes new life into the women who are affected by Victor's choices.

Justine is the most creatively reimagined, the faithful maid whose dedication to the Frankensteins proves to be her demise. In Waldherr's novel, Justine's scoliosis and appearance make her "otherworldly;" almost as an insertion of an Igor character, Justine is set on a collision course with the creature. Waldherr makes a point to remind us that Justine receives an incredible education from the Frankensteins; however, she remains frustratingly naive, bordering on unrealistic obliviousness.

The primary issue I had while reading was that these women's lives obsessively revolve around men; fathers, brothers, sons, and lovers. This is understandable given the novel's premise, but even newly imagined plotlines focus on male characters. The female characters, apparently, do not know women other than each other.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Unnatural Creatures and took particular joy in aligning it with Shelley's text.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

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What an interesting taken on the classic Frankenstein novel! I throughly enjoyed the audio adaption of Unnatural Creatures and I appreciated the author's perspective of the female characters.

The writing was superb and the narration was perfection. I highly recommend!

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I had actually read the book version when it came out, so I was excited to listen to the audio book. I thought Barrie Kreinik did a great job in narrating the book and it was still as enjoyable as the book itself.

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Thank you NetGalley for the audio ARC of this book. I was very excited when I read this premise of the book and was prepared to be scared and spooked. This is the complete opposite of what happened, and I found myself extremely bored.

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