| Love -- Fiction. |
| Authorship -- Juvenile fiction. |
| Novels in verse -- Juvenile fiction. |
| Young adult fiction. |
| Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851 -- Juvenile fiction. |
| Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822 -- Juvenile fiction. |
Available:*
Audience | Shelf Location | Material Type | Shelf Number | Current Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teen/Young Adult | Fiction | Book | YA FIC HEMPHILL | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
An all-consuming love affair.
A family torn apart by scandal.
A young author on the brink of greatness.
Hideous Love is the fascinating story of gothic novelist Mary Shelley, who as a teen girl fled her restrictive home only to find herself in the shadow of a brilliant but moody boyfriend, famed poet Percy Shelley. It is the story of the mastermind behind one of the most iconic figures in all of literature: a monster constructed out of dead bodies and brought to life by the tragic Dr. Frankenstein.
Mary wrote Frankenstein at the age of nineteen, but inspiration for the monster came from her life--the atmospheric European settings she visited, the dramas swirling around her, and the stimulating philosophical discussions with the greatest minds of the period, like her close friend Lord Byron.
This luminous verse novel from award-winning author Stephanie Hemphill reveals how Mary Shelley became one of the most celebrated authors in history.
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Hemphill's ability to plumb the depths of an author's pain and despair is evident in this examination of the life of Mary Shelley, best known as the author of Frankenstein and wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. This present-tense novel in verse provides an intimate glimpse into Mary's life. In addition to pondering questions of life and death, Hemphill explores morality, fidelity, creation, and pain. Mary's personal life reads like a soap opera. At age 16, she meets Percy and months later they elope, abandoning his pregnant wife, Harriet. The couple lives throughout Europe and, following Harriet's suicide, eventually marry. Mary's life is filled with emotionally scarring events, including the deaths of her mother, sister, and children, which she feels "like a thousand knives/have been thrust upon me." She also struggles with Percy's flirtations with her stepsister and with her complicated relationship with Lord Byron. Her tempestuous life becomes a catalyst for her writing. "My protagonist, Victor Frankenstein,/builds his creature of graveyard parts/before he sets out to animate it/through science. I construct/my characters beginning with people/I know and then add/or rearrange other aspects of personality/to fit my plot." Readers will identify the parallels between the creation of a monster and the creation of her famous book.-Barbara M. Moon, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hemphill's fictional autobiography-in-verse of Mary Shelley focuses on her domestic life, which makes for a gripping story while diminishing its subject. Mary's awe for her famous philosopher father sets the stage for her hero-worship of her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary girlishly finds his interest in her flattering, and he leaves his wife to run away with her, scandalizing Mary's family. Shelley tells Mary she has "great things to write./ It is your lovely fate," and treats her as an intellectual equal; Hemphill (Wicked Girls) portrays writing and motherhood as Mary's greatest joys. However, Mary also idealizes Percy despite his clear failings: financial mismanagement, jealous hypochondria during her pregnancies, and a selfish interest in free love, including a likely lengthy affair with her stepsister as they "travel as a threesome/ once again like/ some tiresome, rickety wheelbarrow." Painting Mary's feelings about Percy as simplistic devotion, despite his repeatedly appalling behavior, makes her a frustrating character as time goes on. Hemphill's verse can be elegant, but also jerky and staccato, limiting the story's complexity and, ironically, Mary's ability to express herself. Ages 13-up. (Oct) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Few stories-behind-the-story get retold as much as the writing of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but the ever-reliable free-verse poet Hemphill, author of the Printz Honor Book Your Own, Sylvia (2007), manages to plumb from it her own vein of riches. For starters, Hemphill does not obsess upon the novel, instead letting it rest as a distant metaphor. Instead, she tracks Mary's young life and a tumultuous life it is, as she suffers multiple dead children, affairs, suicides, and deaths. First and foremost, this is a chronicle of Mary's stormy long affair with the married poet Percy Shelley as they, often with the infamous Lord Byron and Mary's jealous stepsister Claire in tow, outrun scandal across Europe. The girlish accessibility of the prose subtly transforms to something darker and more mature, with Hemphill's restraint her finest quality, whether speaking about art or sex or death: We both know / that sorrow cannot be measured / by the size of a little one's shoe. This is, as intended, an ideal companion piece for teens studying the original classic.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist