Reader Response

Looking for reader responses wasn’t very challenging, but it was somewhat amusing. After looking on Barnes and Noble and only finding a handful of ratings, I thought why are there so few of reviews on this piece of literature? Most reviews were five stars but no username or text was provided, which didn’t help much when comparing what other readers had to say about Frankenstein for this project. I stumbled over to Amazon and initially found only two reviews, which both rated Frankenstein at five stars, I typed in Norton Critical edition and found 34 reviews with an average rating of around 4.5 stars. The reviews were positive, mostly college students stating that they had to read the book and fell in love with it. While there were a few negative reviews, they were just negatively reviewed because of Norton’s revisions to the novels and didn’t relate to or discuss the actual story that Shelley wrote. Feeling discouraged, I went over to Good Reads and was pleasantly surprised.

 Good Reads has around 8,000 reviews for Frankenstein with an average rating of 3.65 stars. Wow! I scrolled through these reviews for about two hours trying to figure out if there is a particular audience or theme these reviews revolve around and I noticed a few funny things.

Most low star ratings came from either students in high school or students in college at the time of the review. After clicking on the user profile, I noted that most reviews that were under three stars came from users who appear under the age of thirty. This was a common theme in the classroom also; most of us dreaded reading this novel because it is quite old and uses language that is unheard of today. I do think good reads is a site dedicated to mostly scholars or people who are advocates for reading, so I think this site may be slightly biased. I did find an amusing review on the site which I think sums up most of the class’ feelings on the novel by the end of the book.

 This was written by user, BunWat, on July 24^th, 2010 (No other information could be found on them) and they said “Yeah I know, its dated, the language is excessive and sometimes so elevated as to be faintly absurd, the frame is probably not necessary, and the women are mostly useless. And yet, somehow it still captures my imagination.” I found this to be the closest thing to how I felt about the novel, that it was dreadful; yet I was fascinated because so many of the issues women face in the novel are relatable centuries later.

In conclusion, the reviews were a mish-mash of good and bad, but most bad reviews came from people who were forced to read the book. I’d be interested to see if in ten years these readers become one of the classic readers who rate the novel at five stars because they are either able to relate to it better or have taken the time to mature and see past the basic language barrier for an underlying message. I’m still on the fence of whether or not I enjoyed the book, I think if I read it again though; I’d have a much better understanding and I’d be able to make better connections with the reading and everyday life.