It’s been a long while since I wrote a book review. This is mostly because any books I read lately are assigned from a class and I just don’t care that much for a lot of them (however, if you hear that I read a certain book that you’re interested in and you want a full scale review, let me know).
However, now I am in a Young Adult Literature class where I’m required to read, well... a lot of young adult literature. Most of the popular books nowadays are young adult novels, but I’ve never been a huge fan of YA books. This is because a lot of them are a little too simple for me, have obnoxious/cliche characters, are uninventive, and sometimes try too hard. However, since taking this class, I’ve been appreciating the (I guess you can call it a) genre more. YA books are meant to change the world by inspiring the young generation. Not that there aren’t stupid, mind-numbing books out there, but a good YA novel addresses real life issues that teens deal with and writes it in such a way that helps that age group become aware and even change.
Anyways, that is not what this post is about. I’ll not bore you with my class’s teachings. In my class, I have to prepare a presentation either on an author or a genre of my choice and read three books by that author or from that genre (then I have to present it and explain the author/genre). I chose horror for my genre, so I had to choose three books in the YA horror genre. Naturally, I turned to the internet for advice because I had no idea where to begin. I chose my novels based on how interesting they sounded (off a top 50 YA horror novel list). Long story short, the first novel I read was This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel.
It’s a prequel to the famous horror novel, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It follows Victor Frankenstein as a teenager as he searches for a cure for his dying brother and thinks he may find it through unnatural means.
I was surprised by how much I liked this book, actually. I’ve read Frankenstein before, so I fully understood the significance of the characters, their connections, and their motivations. I would probably recommend at least familiarizing yourself with the original novel before reading this one to fully appreciate it. I mean, it definitely still makes sense if you don’t know who everybody is and what happens ultimately, but I know that I appreciated it more with my background knowledge.
What I appreciated the most was how developed Victor was. I hadn’t read Frankenstein in a while, but I did remember that in the original book, he said that he regretted how obsessed and overly ambitious he was. This book really set the ground work for that. He didn’t just obsess over finding a cure for his brother, he obsessed over everything. I liked how he slowly gained an interest in science, alchemy, etc. and found he was extremely gifted at it, and his extreme thirst for knowledge, I loved his inner turmoil of wanting to find a cure to save his brother, but also wanting glory. He just wanted to be appreciated. I know what it’s like to feel overshadowed by a sibling sometimes. I can imagine that feeling must be a thousand times worse when that sibling is an identical twin.
Of course, he was a weirdo teenager too with raging hormones. I was literally shouting at the book sometimes, telling him to calm down. He does NOT know how to woo a woman, let me just say that much.
I guess, I’m getting into criticisms already: the romance was the weirdest part for me. In the original, Victor has a fiancee, but there’s really not a lot of detail about how they got together. It just says they grew up together, fell in love, and then got engaged. That’s literally all it says. Thus, this novel fleshes it out... *sigh* Really, it could have been so sweet, but no. It had to be all weird and awkward and Victor had to be a total dweeb forcing himself upon her. Like, no. Chill, dude! And then her, sending mixed signals all over the place! And what was with the sleepwalking? (I don’t remember if that was in the original novel. If it wasn’t, then it being in this book was so random and weird.) I just felt like their stupidness took away from the tragedy that will befall them in the future.
Anyways, it was still an extremely well-written book (at least for a YA novel). It was a pretty easy read, maybe something a middle-schooler could read. I actually read the entire thing in about four hours. But it was still super well-written, none of this Twilight crap. It really painted a picture for you (without being overly descriptive), even the action scenes were very clear and you knew exactly what was going on. It was also very good at showing and not telling. Right from the get-go, I knew exactly what kind of relationship Victor had with his brother. It was maybe a little predictable, but there were some things that I didn’t see coming at all.
And the tension it builds. I was definitely on the edge of my seat sometimes. I know that’s hard to write without being like “and then this happened. And suddenly this happened.” Action and suspense are two of the hardest things for me, and it was so well executed here. I really enjoyed it.
There are some sort of supernatural elements about it, but nothing too extreme. It’s something you’d expect in a Frankenstein book/movie. The lines between science and witchcraft are blurred.
In conclusion, I’d recommend it to anybody looking for a quick, fun read, especially if you are familiar with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s got really good action, adventure, and great suspense. If you’re looking for a fulfilling romance, this is not the place to go. It’s not horrible, but it could definitely be improved upon. It’s well-written and I never found myself upset with any of the wording. The characters are all great, especially the main one, all flawed and interesting. So, give it a read if you’ve got the time.
(And I found out that there's a sequel to this called Such Wicked Intent, but the plot doesn't sound as appealing to me as this one did. But, who knows, maybe it's good. Maybe one day I'll get around to reading it.)
