I was so invested in this book that I read it in a single day. The prose was absolutely gorgeous and just swept me away from the jump. It felt like a perfect book to read after having read Frankenstein and Frankissstein earlier this year, the latter of which had a thread line similar to this book that recounted the life of Mary Shelley. I expected this to be a 5 ⭐ read for me and in the running for my top ten books of the year, but I felt that it fell off a bit in the second half.

I spent the whole book waiting for Mary to describe to her daughter how she fell in love with her father, but then... the book ended without even mentioning it at all. It left me feeling like the story was incomplete.

Still, I strongly recommend this book. It reminded me of Hamnet in a lot of ways both with the quality of the writing itself but also with the growing aching feeling of "I know how this story ends..." as you move through it while still feeling compelled to keep reading and find out how we get there.