Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818). Readers should be grateful that Dr. Phil was not around in 1818. If he had been, Mary Shelley may have chosen to discuss her traumatic life with him. Instead, she turned trauma into art and wrote Frankenstein, in which the outcast Dr. Victor Frankenstein usurps God’s and woman’s life-giving power to create a monster who for all his desire cannot be loved. This novel about unwanted things is gripping, frightening, inspiring, and very different from the movies based on it.
Total Points: 5 (AB 5)