#Frankenstein is Frankenstein. It's just good on like every level. Victor is my problematic fave. I will take no criticism. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

themidnightcircusshow · 6 months ago

Text

@heartofstanding tagged me in this meme months ago and unfortunately it took me this long to get to it because I had a mild crisis over how long it's been since I've read a novel, let alone one that I loved 😅 so this is nine of my favourite novels (not books, because if I included manga/short stories/comics/etc this would be giant)

0The Picture of Dorian Gray -- Oscar Wilde// Pyrrhus-- Mark Merlis//The Scarecrow--Ronald Hugh Morrieson//Unnatural History--Kate Osman//Tunnels of Blood--Darren Shan//The Coffin Dancer--Jeffery Deaver//Hero--Perry Moore//Frankenstein--Mary Shelley//One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-- Ken Kasey

#TPODG I feel like is obvious. But a genuinely hilarious book that is also poignant and tragic and so /so/ compelling #The more work you put into it the more you get out of it and I get so sad every time I see people #not wanting to look deeper than what's beyond the surface #Pyrrhus gets the extremely high honour of Greek Myth Retelling That is Actually Good #it's less about the Trojan War and more about the journey there set in the 1980s gay scene #the cursed spot that gets Philoctetes abandoned is an effective allegory right until the moment it isn't an allegory at all #and you should see the gut punch coming but somehow you don't #The Scarecrow is my Token Kiwi Representation and it's also the one that got me into the genre I now write almost exclusively #reading it feels like watching a cheesy low budget slasher that accidentally says some really interesting things about sexism and misogyny #(I say accidentally because it is the 20s and my tutor very loudly hated this book for being sexist)#(and I both totally agree and disagree because Prue is the prototypical final girl and needs an adaptation that does her justice)#Also the story of this novel's publication is freaking hilarious and why I will only write under a pseudonym because I would be next #Unnatural History is an exact blueprint of what I love about sci-fi done well in the way we've only very recently started to see on screen #and I hate that the show of Doctor Who rarely if ever reaches this level #Tunnels of Blood is my favourite of the Darren Shan Saga but really is just a stand in for the entire series #yes it's a kids series but it's a kid series that got me into horror and surrealism #and delivers the most effective and heartbreaking plot twist that not even Hannibal pulled off as well #The Coffin Dancer is just some damn good crime fiction and I wish Jeffery Deaver wasn't so slept on #(yes I know The Bone Collector got an adaptation but The Bone Collector isn't even in the top ten of the Lincoln Rhyme series)#unfortunately Deaver's strongest point is his use of point of view #but he still manages to get the twist to be shocking (and Coffin Dancer is the best example of it) in a way that other media fails at #Hero is about a gay disabled teen with superpowers and somehow tumblr does not know about it #It is such a fun riff on superheroes while also being genuinely sweet and touching and sad #It was meant to get a tv show but the writer passed so it got stuck in production hell :(#Frankenstein is Frankenstein. It's just good on like every level. Victor is my problematic fave. I will take no criticism.#I am however on my knees hoping the Guillermo Del Toro adaptation finally gets it right #one flew over the cuckoo's nest means so much to me but no one ever talks about it beyond the Ratched and Mcmurphy stuff #who are the least interesting characters to me. And I find the debate about the sexism ignores that the novel is about the structural abuse #of the mentally ill

6 notes · View notes