The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

"I envied her dark skirts. Mine would show every trace of mud and filth the city had to offer. But I had to wear white, knowing I would see Victor."
Elizabeth Lavenza hasn't had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver," and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets . . . until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything--except a friend.
Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable--and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk. Soon she and Victor are inseparable.
But her new life comes at a price. As the years pass, Elizabeth's survival depends on managing Victor's dangerous temper and entertaining his every whim, no matter how depraved. Behind her blue eyes and sweet smile lies the calculating heart of a girl determined to stay alive no matter the cost as the world she knows is consumed by darkness.


Ouch. I loved it.
This book was a retelling of the classic Frankenstein tale, but from the point of view of Victor’s love, Elizabeth. Why did Elizabeth marry a monster like Victor Frankenstein? Why did she not tell anybody about his madness? How did she manage to escape unscathed? (She doesn’t btw).

This book starts off slow and then it… I think it’s best approximated by an exponential approximation. The first one-third goes along at an easy pace, slowly ramping up to something comfortable. And then all hell breaks loose, and it just. Keeps. On. Escalating.

The story pulls you in, and then it doesn’t let you go. The plot is well laid out, and feels awfully realistic. The story starts off when Elizabeth and Victor are teens, and is interspersed with flashbacks that reveal incriminating evidence as the timeline forges ahead. It's genius.

The characters are whole different kind of treasure. Elizabeth is constantly performing for the people around her. She is cunning, shrewd, but ultimately a kind person. She tampers down her moral compass when the occasion calls for it, and isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. Still, she feels. She loves and fears, and shows kindness and believes. But she hides it all away, doing whatever needs to be done. On the other hand, Victor hides nothing. He is exactly what he says he is, and he has no qualms about it. He is decidedly … wrong, but he has no doubts about his decisions. And so the story is about two very different people wound tightly together to each other and no one else until they lose all sense of what is right and wrong.

Elizabeth is trying so hard to hide her worthlessness that it comes to her as a shock that she may be worth anything at all. For all her meticulously-laid plans, it’s the one outcome she didn’t consider.

It’s a horror story, but at the end of the day, it’s just so inexplicably sad. Perhaps I’m the only one who thinks of the lives lost, and the families shattered, but it’s what stays with me long after the story is over.

For readers like me, who know the story of Frankenstein in their peripheral knowledge, this book was wonderful because it filled in the gaps, twisted some facts, and shone lights into the cracks. It changed my perspective on the story, but Elizabeth in general.

Also, do read the author’s end notes, her comments about Mary Shelley are … thought-provoking to say the least.

If you didn’t get the vibe: go read The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein.

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