Review: The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

My mind is pretty much broken from this book. I don't even know where to start with this review of mine. I had hoped that I would enjoy this book. And oh, how I did. I loved it so much. But oh, my poor heart. So yes. This book mostly broke me. And I could not help but love every moment of it. Giving this precious five stars.

I must admit to never having read the official Frankenstein book, or seen many movies about it. But I know most of the story, and have seen a few movies, years back. Which made it even easier to picture everything in this book. And now I must do even more research about it, ack, because this book has made me curious.

I shall start by mentioning that this book is all kinds of dark and awful and I loved every part of it. But it is not for those that can't handle dark things. There is a lot of death. A lot of sad moments. For me, it was so perfect. But do not go into this book expecting it to be all pink and happy. Because it was not. And I would not have wanted it any other way. Eee. I loved this book a lot. Even though my heart is also completely broken, I think. And I must say that I do wish this book had a happier story as well, I wish there had been a romance to make things more happy. But I also very much loved how dark this book was. There were a few hints of happy parts. But they were not many. This book was dark. Dark and lovely. And I have so many thoughts about it all.

This book tells the story about seventeen year old Elizabeth. And oh, how I loved this girl. Getting to know her was the very best. There are a few scenes that include things that happened with her growing up, and I loved those pages. Elizabeth has been living with the Frankenstein family since she was five years old, and her caretaker sold her to them. She did not have a good life before that. This new family got her as a gift for their son, Victor, whom was a little bit older than Elizabeth. And this couple has three children total.

Reading about Elizabeth was the very best. But also the most painful. My heart is forever broken because of her. She was such a strong girl. And all she wants is to stay safe and secure, to not be left with nothing if the Frankensteins decide they do not need her anymore. And so ever since she was five years old, she has done everything she could to stay with them. She became best friends with Victor. She was with him all the time, keeping him calm, mostly. She tried her best with the rest of the family. They were interesting.

And oh, this poor girl. I am not going to talk about most of what happens, just wanting to mention some things. Elizabeth is not happy. Because Victor is not a normal boy. He can get angry. He can hurt things. And Elizabeth is the only one who can calm him. He has been gone to school for the past two years, and Elizabeth is worried with him gone, worried she will be kicked out. And so she goes to look for him. Which is where this story truly begin. Because she does find him. But she also finds much more. Ack. My heart.

This book is filled with amazingly written characters. Elizabeth was my favorite. I wanted her to be happy and safe so badly. She has spent her whole life pretending. Being who everyone else needed her to be, so she could stay safe. And it broke my heart. She was so strong and awesome, though. For the past two years, she has had another best friend. Justine. Gosh, I adored this girl. She was a lot softer and kinder than Elizabeth, but I loved her so. And they were great friends. Reading her story pretty much broke me.

There were so many characters that I loved in this book. It's mostly focused on Elizabeth and Victor, but there were some others too that I enjoyed reading about. Like Henry. He annoyed me a little, but he was written so well. And Mary. I adored that girl. Wishing there had been more about her. She was awesome. And oh, then there was Victor. I am not going to say much about him. Just going to mention that he was written so well and was truly complicated. Sometimes I loved him. Then I hated him more than anything.

I'm not going to talk too much about this book. And I haven't really spoiled anything at all yet. And I won't. But oh, how I loved this book. I'm not sure how I will handle this heartbreak, though. This is not a happy story. There are a lot of deaths. And those killed me. There are some pretty gruesome scenes too. All of it were written so well, though. Writing was amazing. The ending was both good and bad. I'm not sure how I felt about it, to be honest. But it was an excellent ending, even so. And very fitting with the story as well.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein was more than I could have ever imagined it would be. I loved every page of it. It is such a dark and hopeless story. But with the most fierce main character girl. Elizabeth was amazing and I loved getting to know her so much. This book broke me. Yet I am so happy that I read it and I know that I will read this book more than once. I can't help but hope that Kiersten will write more books like this one. Dark and awful and so perfect. I want more of it. Crossing all my fingers.

Huge thank you to Penguin Random House International for sending me the free ARC copy of this book to read and review. I'm so thrilled I had the chance to read it early. As I loved it so very much. And I will treasure my gorgeous ARC forever and ever. Cannot wait to own the finished copy of this in September too. This book was a surprise in some ways, as I didn't know I would love it as much as I did. But I'm so happy about it. If you like dark stories, then you most definitely need to read this book. So worth reading.

Goodreads - The Book Depository - Amazon