Frankenstein's Monster: A Book Review

I don't read a lot anymore for a few reasons.  

1)  New literature bores me.  I like a good read with full bodied descriptions, deep characters and educated verbiage.  In my opinion, too much of popular fiction is stale, flat and written for a 7th grader.  Being impatient, I'll give up the book before suffering through its entirety.

2)  If I do find a good read, I can't put it down.  I'll eat up every moment of my free time and get no sleep and ignore my family to finish the book.  Wow, where is my self control? 

I've just finished Susan Heyboer O'Keefe's adult novel, Frankenstein's Monster, which fit all too nicely into category #2.  I could not put the book down. To continue where Mary Shelley left off and capture the essence of the time and characters in such a way, to me, is amazingly well done.

I enjoyed the well woven pattern of self doubt, personal judgment and confusion with the human world in the journal entry type dialogue of the Monster who is constantly searching for who and what he is.  The mixture of sadness, sweetness, rage, compassion, death, love and violence makes you eager for more of the Monster's thoughts and moves.  

The story line also does not disappoint.  Traveling across countries leaves you with an acute sense of the Monster's self doubt and inability to see himself as a man, instead just seeing hunted prey.  O'Keefe masterfully describes each scene to where you can nearly see and smell the surroundings.  

Frankenstein's Monster not only captures well the gothic and macabre, but captures the true doubting soul of any man.  Who am I?  Where do I belong?  What is my worth?  An excellent read!!