Mary's Monster

Lita Judge’s Mary’s Monster, published in 2018, explores the events in Mary Shelley’s life that led to her writing Frankenstein. The story of Mary Shelley’s life including her parents, meeting Percy Shelley, leaving home at a young age, and losing a child, is told through a series of poems. Haunting black-and-white watercolor illustrations fill up every page and add to the intriguing story of the creation of Frankenstein.

Judge’s novel is young adult Fiction. This novel encourages young readers to think about what led Mary Shelley to write her iconic novel. This novel offers a different perspective on Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s creature that most popular culture does not portray. Rather than showing Frankenstein’s creature as a horrible monster, this book shows the creature as an incredible production of Mary Shelley’s hardships and experiences. 200 years after the original publication of Frankenstein, Judge is challenging readers to think differently about the novel by understanding what led to its creation. Readers have the opportunity to see Frankenstein’s creature as something born out of tragedy rather than the carelessness of Victor Frankenstein. As many different literary theories do, Mary’s Monster considers the loss and hurt than Mary Shelley experienced which influenced Frankenstein. By informing young readers about Mary Shelley’s life, Judge encourages them to think differently about Shelley’s iconic novel. Mary’s Monster encourages young people to consider Frankenstein in a new way 200 years after it was first published.