Christopher's novels are always fun and educational (turkey bowling in Safeway!). Anima Rising continues his streak of excellence. What a great novel based on truth and science fiction. Highly enjoyable.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

Christopher Moore’s Anima Rising is a delirious, genre-defying fantasia that reads like Mary Shelley, Gustav Klimt, and Sigmund Freud got drunk in a Viennese café and decided to write a feminist revenge myth. It’s grotesque, hilarious, and—beneath the absurdist surface—achingly sincere.

Setting: Vienna, 1911 — Where Art, Madness, and Myth Collide

Moore’s Vienna is not just a historical backdrop—it’s a fever dream of fin-de-siècle decadence. Klimt, Freud, and Jung are not cameos but fully absurd characters, rendered with Moore’s signature irreverence. The city pulses with eroticism, intellectual ferment, and existential dread, making it the perfect stage for a reanimated woman’s search for meaning.

🧟‍♀️ Judith: The Bride Reborn

The novel opens with Gustav Klimt discovering a nude, seemingly dead woman in the Danube. Instead of calling the police, he sketches her. She wakes. He names her Judith—after his own painting—and thus begins the journey of a woman who is not merely undead, but uncontainable.

Judith is revealed to be the discarded Bride of Frankenstein, cast off by Adam and left to die in the Arctic. But Moore doesn’t just resurrect her—he reclaims her. Through surreal therapy sessions with Freud and mythic encounters with Inuit deities like Sedna and Raven, Judith becomes a symbol of feminine rage, resilience, and reinvention. She is both muse and monster, victim and avenger.

🧩 Themes: Identity, Autonomy, and the Art of Becoming

Beneath the slapstick and satire, Anima Rising is a profound meditation on what it means to be created—by men, by myth, by trauma—and how one might reclaim authorship of their own story. Judith’s journey is a meta fictional rebuke to the male gaze: Klimt’s sensual art, Frankenstein’s grotesque science, and Freud’s reductive psychoanalysis are all skewered with biting wit.

Yet Moore never loses sight of Judith’s humanity. Her pain is real. Her rage is earned. And her transformation—from object to icon—is the novel’s beating heart.

🐺 Side Characters and Surrealism

- Geoff, the croissant-eating demon dog, is comic relief and a mythic guardian.

- Freud and Jung are delightfully caricatured, their theories lampooned in scenes that feel like Monty Python meets In Treatment.

- Klimt, for all his flaws, becomes a reluctant ally, more fascinated by Judith’s mind than her body.

Moore’s prose is at its most unhinged—and most brilliant. The novel is laced with literary allusions, bawdy humor, and moments of startling poignancy. One moment you’re laughing at a demon dog’s digestive issues; the next, you’re contemplating the metaphysics of resurrection.

> “To be reborn is not to forget death,” Judith says. “It is to carry it like a second spine.”

That line alone could anchor a thesis on post-traumatic identity.

Strengths and Caveats

- Strengths:

- Dazzling blend of satire, horror, and myth
- A fiercely original feminist protagonist
- Rich intertextuality and historical absurdism
- Moore’s most ambitious and emotionally resonant work to date

- Caveats:

- Not for the faint of heart or humorless
- Some readers may find the tonal shifts jarring
- Requires a tolerance for gleeful anachronism and grotesque comedy

Anima Rising is Poor Things by way of Young Frankenstein, with a soul stitched from myth, trauma, and radical autonomy. It’s a novel that dares to ask: what if the monster’s bride told her own story—and what if it was smarter, funnier, and more furious than anything the men around her could imagine?

This is the second Christopher Moore book I've read, the first being Lamb, and this one is similar in writing style and humor. But this book is not as lighthearted so that's important to note.

If you're looking for an engaging read with some comic relief, this might be perfect for you. Just be sure to read any TW beforehand, if needed.

What a quirky first time read but not the last time read by Mr. Moore. I loved the famous figure, the art and even though the story was a little wonky at time, I really enjoyed it.

Thank you NetGalley, William Morrow and Christopher Moore for the ARC

DNF at 10%. This was genuinely not resonating with me, so I grabbed the audiobook to try to tandem read. It further just really did not resonate. I love Moore's book Lamb (one of my literal all-time favorite books) and was disappointed this was not a hit for me.

It's an outrageous premise that the bride of Frankenstein should be taken under the wing of Gustav Klimt, the famous Viennese artist, but Christopher Moore has pulled it off. It all begins when Klimt encounters a naked young woman who has apparently drowned in the Danube, but when he feels he must draw her she comes alive and he brings her to his studio. Although the woman, dubbed Judith by Klimt, at first has no memory of who she is, readers are privy to occasional chapters describing her origins, including being stranded in Antarctica with Adam, Frankenstein's monster. Throughout this rip-roaring story, we are introduced to the art scene of Vienna in the early 1900's, with such real characters as Egon Scheile, Wally Neuzil, Carl Jung, and Sigmund Freud. As the central character, the fictional Judith undergoes dramatic changes as she recovers her memory of her own four deaths followed by remarkable lives of both exploitation and resilience. The backdrop of the Bohemian lifestyle, Secessionist art movement, and the Viennese intelligentsia, make for interesting reading for art history buffs, and of course the Frankenstein reimagined should have wide appeal.

Moore continues to be hilarious and an excellent writer, not always things that go together. I've like most of his books, this is a good example of his skill and style.

Published by William Morrow on May 13, 2025

Few writers bring as much humor to the supernatural as Christopher Moore. Anima Rising combines mythology, primarily drawn from Inuit culture, with a continuation of Mary Shelley’s story about Frankenstein’s Monster. Set in Vienna beginning in 1911, Moore’s primary characters are the city’s most famous residents: Sigmund Freud and Gustav Klimt, with lesser but important roles assigned to Egon Schiele and the visiting Carl Jung.

Klimt is walking near his studio when he sees the body of a naked girl in a Vienna canal. Klimt likes nothing so much as the nude female form, so he decides to sketch the drowned girl. He prevails on a boy to help him load the body into a newspaper cart so he can take it home. When she coughs, Klimt realizes that she has come alive. At his studio, one of his regular models, Wally (short for Waltraud) Neuzil, looks after her. Klimt decides to name her Judith.

Like Klimt, Schiele, Jung, and Freud, Wally is a character drawn from history. She was Schiele’s lover and muse and is the object of his Portrait of Wally. A free-spirited woman ahead of her time, Wally has a delightfully snarky personality.

Soon after Klimt rescues Judith, the body of a man named Thiessen is found in the canal, absent his head, which had been torn off. Klimt senses a connection between the events and decides to keep Judith from the authorities. Wally is happy to have Judith as a friend and protector even if she regards Judith as a lunatic.

We learn from letters written by Robert Allen Walton, the captain of the ship Prometheus, that in 1799 the ship became stranded in the ice while searching for the Northwest Passage. The captain happened upon a man pulling a sled that carried a large crate. The man was Victor Frankenstein. He had been chasing the monster he created.

Frankenstein tells Walton that the monster was lonely, so it killed a woman with the plan to reanimate her and make her immortal using Frankenstein’s methods. Walton discovered that the woman was in Frankenstein’s crate. Sadly for Frankenstein, the monster boarded the ship, killed him, and took the crate and its contents on a sled pulled by a pack of dogs, but not before Walton learned that an infusion of the woman’s blood would help him defeat death, at least in the short term.

Judith is obviously the monster’s murder victim and intended bride (or sex slave, as she describes her status). She recalls nothing of her past until she submits to hypnosis by Freud and later by Jung. During the story that emerges from her memory, Judith has harrowing adventures in the arctic, including disagreeable coupling with the monster and close encounters with polar bears.

With the help of hypnosis, Judith realizes that she died four times during her existence, the last death having preceded Klimt’s discovery of her body in the canal. She has lived with the Inuit, in the Underworld, and in Amsterdam before ending up in a Vienna canal. She also discovers that she is sharing her body with two gods she met in the Underworld, Sedna and Raven.

Judith is not with Klimt long before she is joined by a malamute named Geoff. Geoff is inhabited by Akhlut, a creature from Inuit folklore that combines a wolf with an orca. Geoff grows even larger when Akhlut crosses over from the Underworld. Akhlut can swallow a walrus whole if he is of a mind to, although Geoff prefers to snack on croissants.

The novel crosses mythology and philosophy with nineteenth century literature and early twentieth century Eruopean culture. Jung contemplates how Judith’s experience (which he regards as a fantasy until he sees Geoff turn into Akhlut) fits within his theory of the collective unconscious. Freud, of course, leaves Judith wondering if she is experiencing penis envy — unlikely, since Judith is stronger than human men and has little regard for penises, given that they have usually entered her without her consent.

The plot involves Judith’s desire to discover her true identity — the one she was born with, before Frankenstein’s monster killed her. Her sessions with Freud and Jung provide clues, but late in the novel an unexpected source provides her answer. When she learns her true name, Judith realizes that of all the identities she had adopted, “the closest thing she’d had to a surname was ‘the Murdering Prostitute,’ which didn’t look right on a library card.”

The story makes an important point about the history of men using women — not just for sex, although Judith is repeatedly raped — but also as unloved child bearers, as laborers, and in Judith’s case, as the source of life-prolonging blood she is forced to share with men. Yet Klimt will eventually be rewarded for treating her (and Wally) with kindness. As a comedy/adventure novel/horror story, Anima Rising balances its dark observations with humor, excitement, and a happy ending.

RECOMMENDED

It’s been years since I’ve read a Christopher Moore book. Maybe back in middle or high school? Not sure, but kind of jumped at the chance to see how the Alison of the early aughts holds up to my current literary preferences. I’m guessing Anima Rising is simply significantly darker than his previous works, but it’s also possible I just missed much of the innuendo in his early books. I’m pretty oblivious in general 🥲.

Anima Rising has some heavy themes. They’re presented in such a flat way so there’s very little emotion behind them. Still, highly *highly* recommend checking tw. It definitely gives Poor Things vibes at times. History (especially art history) has never been my thing so it was pretty easy for me to just go with what Moore presents in the book. I loved reading the afterword to see the inspiration and historical accuracy with how he puts the story together. It has some completely absurd moments, many which made me laugh and others that were pretty dark.

I enjoyed the read and would want to check out other reads by Moore. This is a weird, dark tale but still has that signature levity and nonchalance Moore brings to his books. A significant portion of the story revolves around art in the early 20th century so it’s definitely not a fast paced tale. But if you enjoy slower, witty books with dark historical elements then give this one a try.

Christopher Moore loses his damn mind once again and combines Frankenstein, Gustave Klimt, Sigmund Freud and the Underworld in Anima Rising. This latest historical comedy from Moore tackles the art world once again with hilarious results.
Picture it. Vienna. 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire and darling of Viennese society, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal. His first instinct is to draw her instead of making sure she is ok. Luckily, she is alive, and he secrets her away from his studio. There, Klimt and his model-turned-muse Wally tend to the nearly feral girl. She doesn’t remember who she is, why she was in the river, or where she came from. Klimt names her Judith after his famous painting about a Jewess who cut off an Assyrian general’s head. With help from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Judith comes to realize that she has ties to Victor Frankenstein. But with Victor long dead, who is the man who just came to Klimt’s studio? And why is Judith followed by the giant dog-thing named Geoff?
Moore takes the readers on another wild journey through the past art world, reminiscent of Sacre Bleu. Moore uses a variety of techniques to tell the story, including a captain’s log, letters, therapy sessions, and hypnosis flashbacks to help tell the present-day story. It is quite obvious that Moore has put a lot of research into the people and the time period. He understood the time before he decided where to bend it for the sake of drama and comedy. He lists those changes in the appendix. As weird as the plot combination sounds, it works well together for a unique and enjoyable story.
Moore tries to be open with Klimt, showing his good and bad sides without too much judgment. But he doesn’t do so with others like Jung and especially Freud. Freud is always criticized for his penis envy and overly going to sexual issues. But there are other sides to those issues that I won’t discuss, and Freud has done much more good for psychology than he did bad (let’s not talk about him as a person, though). The same for Jung. He is known so much more than his collective unconscious. But I guess at that point, he didn’t have room for that since he was focusing on how to make Judith the cause of their break in their (in the most hilarious way).
While showing the men in the worst light, Moore makes an effort to give the women some agency in a world where they have none. I was shocked when I opened the book and there was a warning of sexual assault. If you haven’t read Moore, this stuff doesn’t happen. It’s comedy. But he states this is a horror book, and there are sensitive issues. That is because of the time period and because of Frankenstein’s monster. There is rape, statutory rape, and incest. The models of the time period were treated like sex toys. So, Moore does his best to give these characters some resilience, courage, humor, and cleverness, especially when there is very little history that can be found about the actual people. The main character is a true creation, and Judith becomes the icon for women’s strength, rage, vengeance, and justice.
With a quirky throwback to the squirrels, Anima Rising isn’t the funniest Moore novel. But it’s a fun novel of female rage that shows me there are men behind us.

Christopher Moore is a forever yes for me. I love his whimsical and light books, I love his studied and serious books. Something that stands out about his writing for us is how it feels like I got lost in my imagination while he sat in a room telling me a story, and occasionally I come out of it and look over to see a conspiratorial wink before he continues. Always a good read, I’m happy to have had his books in my life all these years.

This was WILD! I gasped so many times reading this and I had no idea where the book was going. This was everything I love about Christopher Moore and I enjoyed every word. The merging of history, art, and classic monsters with amazing characters and a unique story made this hard to put down.

What do you get when you combine Eskimo culture and deities, early 20th-Century Vienna, prominent figures such as Sigmund Freud, Karl Jung and Gustav Klimt with The Bride of Frankenstein? You get Christopher Moore's latest novel, Anima Rising.

Now, you might think combining all these elements together would stretch the boundaries of logic and imagination, but once again author Moore has taken what appear to be very unrelated elements and mixed them into a very enjoyable cocktail of laughter, horror and definite naughtiness. If you happen to read this book and wonder how the whole story came about, there's a nice bit at the end where Moore explains how he came up with the story. I will admit not knowing much about any of the artists in the book (I'd only heard of Klimt previously), but I have now done a little exploring of my own to get a better taste of their artistic styles as well as some of their well-known pieces.

The book was an enjoyable read, but definitely not for those who can't handle a fair amount of profanity and a fair amount of sexual situations. However, if you've read anything by Moore in the past, this one won't surprise you.

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me with an ARC of this novel.

The small scale adventures of the 'Bride" of Frankenstein in Vienna, in 1911. Gustav Klimt comes across an apparently drowned woman with amazing skin on his way to his studio, and decides to bring her with him. Much to his surprise she's alive, but doesn't quite remember her past. Klimt hires Wally Neuzil, one of his models, to be the caretaker to this mystery woman and Moore-ian slapstick humor, historical cameos and dalliances with animals and the super natural ensue for Anima Rising.

Like other Moore works the humor is the point, though Anima makes full use of its historical setting, similar to 2012's Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art. Through Klimt and his studio, we explore other figures from Vienna such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Egon Schiele. As the narrative unfolds and the mysterious women recovers both the abilities to speak and the therapy supplied breakthrough we learn more of her surprising past and proclivities.

Full of humor and escapist settings, it is fun with a serious backbone to it. After all, it does start with a content warning about the life of servitude the Bride was forced into, but it is the women of Anima Rising who hold the power and get things done one way or another.

Recommended to readers of humorous historical fiction, Christopher Moore books or snappy dialogued supernatural tales.

What do you get when you combine Austrian painter Gustav Klimt and a number of his young models, Sigmund Freud, Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein's monster and his bride, and a croissant-loving malamute/wolf? A creative and somewhat crazy, but highly enjoyable, Christopher Moore story!
When Klimt comes across a nude woman in the Danube Canal, he is fascinated by her color and a patchwork of markings on her skin. Rather than calling a policeman immediately, Klimt starts to sketch the drowned woman, surprised when she starts to cough. Pulling her from the canal, Klimt takes her to his studio to recover under the care of one of his models. The drowned woman doesn't remember anything about herself or how she came to be naked in the canal, so Klimt names her Judith and takes her to Freud to see if the psychoanalyst can help her recover her memories. Under hypnosis, Judith tells a remarkable story that includes having died four times and being (basically) a sex-slave for Frankenstein's monster until she finally managed to escape him. Set mostly in 1911, Anima Rising is clever, sometimes dark, always witty, and ultimately a coming-of-age story as Judith realizes her worth and discovers her place in the world.

The essence of this book: chaotic and quirky. In this installment, you encounter Frankenstein's bride, Gustav Klimt, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and even a surprise appearance by Hitler. It’s quirky, yet I didn’t find myself laughing out loud as much as I thought I would. Additionally, the frequency of nude women scenes felt excessive; were all historical painters really like that? But hey, I’ll consider it a fresh take on art. One standout moment for me was the afterword, where Moore explores the history and shares the inspiration behind the book. It really added depth to the narrative. Overall, not too bad, the premise sounded interesting and the story did deliver some interesting parts but i was left wanting more from it by the end to connect to it more!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

I love this author so much. He's very funny. And a lot of the time it's dry and snarky and I especially love that. Somehow he took Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, combined them with Dr Frankenstein, and made it all into a fairly coherent book. Because some of the things in the book were incredibly absurd, I found myself googling the author bios to see how out there this actually was. It turns out those artists really were sort of sex crazed. Gustav really did have 4 male children with 4 of his mistresses, and they were truly all named Gustav. Egon Schiele really did have a really odd affair with his own sister. Yikes. The book actually centers around the women and I appreciated that a great deal. The author pulled some really interesting characters out of history and used them as the center point of his very amusing, fairly absurd, novel.

This maybe isn't where I would start if you've never read this author's work before. A familiarity with the artists is also something I would recommend. Overall, I appreciated it and I hope that he continues to write these books where he takes a rough story about actual people and makes it as funny as possible, and hopefully incorporates artwork while he's at it.

Christopher Moore returns with a Frankenstein's monster assemblage of comedy, historical fiction, and fantasy. In a similar vein as Sacré Bleu, this time we visit pre-WWI Austria and the artist Gustav Klimt. 4/5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for this ARC copy!

I love a weird book, and this was absolutely a weird one. The balance of the darkness and humor was really unique and fun in its own quirky way but there are definitely some triggers that need to be reviewed before going into this book, especially about sexual violence against women.

For the most part I enjoyed this book, but it did have some slower pacing that made certain parts a little hard to get through, but I was invented in the story enough that I had no problem continuing on with the story.

It's 1911 Vienna. An embarrassment of riches as far as geniuses go. The city is filled with artists, musicians, and scientists. Klimt, Freud, Jung, and Mahler, to name a few. Throw in the Bride of Frankenstein, and now we have a party.

Trouble is, she doesn't remember who she is or how she ended up in the canal, and it's up to Gustav Klimt and model Wally to help her figure it out. Along with Freud and Jung, of course.

This is silly, this is deranged, this is hilarious, this is 100% Christopher Moore. A wild, unpredictable ride full of pastries, a wolf dog, painting, fancy clothes, dreams, memories, Klimt's paintings (which further illuminate the narrative), friendship, and discovery.

You'll know what you're in for when you read the author's warning:

"Finally, and I can’t stress this enough, if you are listening to this book in audio format in the car, with a kid or your grandma, turn on something else. Now."

My thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the Advance Reader Copy. (pub date 5/13/2025)