Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Mindless Creator

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

by Leave a Comment

I feel as though, following my reading of Frankenstein, I need to do some kind of deep analysis of its themes and subtext. There is so much just beneath the surface that needs further research and thought. Alas, I don’t really have time for a self-imposed literature assignment, so I’ll just stick with a book review and a few random thoughts and observations for now. Frankenstein is the tale of a man whose thirst for knowledge and invention is his ultimate undoing – a ‘modern’ […]

Sublime horror classic

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

by Leave a Comment

This pandemic is giving me a chance to read some classics that I’ve never read before- silver lining!  Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley in 1816, when she was all of 18 years old (Lainey Gossip would call her a First Book Bitch although this was actually her second book…).  Frankenstein was Shelley’s entry into a horror story challenge between herself, her lover and soon to be husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their friend, Lord Byron. Despite what Hollywood might have you believe, Frankenstein is […]

A Man of Hubris

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

by Leave a Comment

I have seen a few of the movie adaptations of Frankenstein but somehow I never got around to reading the book. I knew that it was supposed to be rather different and much more sophisticated than a simple horror story, and I was really excited to finally read it, but I have to admit I’m sorely disappointed after finishing it, and a big part of this is the main protagonist. Victor Frankenstein has to be one of the most pathetic and self-obsessed idiots ever created […]

It’s official: I ain’t got no cooth

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

by 4 Comments

I’ve resolved to read more classics this year, and that puts me in a bit of a bind. There simply aren’t as many capital-C Classics by women (which does *not* reflect well on our culture), and I’m not that excited to overload on male writers just yet. I know this really means that I need to dig a little deeper and search a little harder to find the good stuff, but in the meantime, I have a few on my shelves, including one that I […]

How dare you sport thus with life

by Leave a Comment

CBR10 BINGO:  This Old Thing (BINGO!) I wanted to title this one “Victor Frankenstein was a real d-bag” but I didn’t want to malign a 200-year-old classic like that. I know that I’m supposed to appreciate this book but I don’t. I tried several times over the years to read this and bailed early on.  Aside from Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, I tend to not like Gothic or Gothic adjacent fiction. It just makes me roll my eyes. In the interest of securing that last BINGO square during […]

An epic tale about the hopelessness of being The Other

by 2 Comments

[BINGO!] I’ve been mulling over this review of Frankenstein for a couple of weeks now and I have so many thoughts and feelings! I’ll first admit that I had never read Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus before this year, and truly believed that the gothic horror story was just the same as James Whale’s Frankenstein movie. And it is not. At all. The same. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley wrote her epic tale about the hopelessness of being The Other, of the misery of the life unwanted, and uncared for. The monster is a […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo