{"id":7515,"date":"2020-04-15T09:52:08","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T13:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=7515"},"modified":"2020-04-15T12:21:04","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T16:21:04","slug":"book-review-mary-shelley-makes-a-monster-by-octavia-cade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-mary-shelley-makes-a-monster-by-octavia-cade\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Mary Shelley Makes a Monster by Octavia Cade"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mary Shelley Makes a Monster: Conversation Pieces Vol. 70 <\/em>by Octavia Cade<\/p>\n

Aqueduct Press, 2019<\/p>\n

eISBN: 978-1-61976-174-2<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback<\/p>\n

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Instead of reading dry academic pieces on women writers who have made significant contributions to literature and thought, enjoy Octavia Cade\u2019s uniquely creative approach to literary criticism in Mary Shelley Makes a Monster: Conversation Pieces Vol. 70. <\/em>A group of provocative short poems is devoted to each of Cade\u2019s selected authors including Mary Shelley, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Janet Frame, Sylvia Plath, Grace Mera Molisa, Octavia Butler, Angela Carter, and Murasaki Shikibu.<\/p>\n

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In the poems, each woman represents a part of Mary Shelley\u2019s literary legacy and is viewed as a possible \u201cmother\u201d for her monster. Effects on the monster become a means of describing the effects each writer has had on literature. Cade captures the essence of each woman by using references to the authors\u2019 work, their own life and environment, the ideas that inspired the content of their writing, and their role in overcoming the obstacles facing a woman who writes.<\/p>\n

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The feminist perspective in this book is clear and shines a light on the complexities of the writing life. In the first poem of the section devoted to Grace Mera Molisa, Cade writes of the monster: \u201cIt has begun to understand that it has been made \/ more of parts that women were never meant to emulate. \/ Anti-custom, with too much of speech patterned over it.\u201d This is the type of observation found throughout the poems. Readers who know the authors will find excellent insights on their writing, and those who don\u2019t will be so intrigued that they will want to read the work of these trailblazers.\u00a0 Highly recommended.<\/p>\n

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Reviewed by Nova Hadley<\/p>\n

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Editor\u2019s note: <\/strong>Mary Shelley Makes a Monster<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection.<\/p>\n

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Mary Shelley Makes a Monster: Conversation Pieces Vol. 70 by Octavia Cade Aqueduct Press, 2019 eISBN: 978-1-61976-174-2 Available: Paperback     Instead of reading dry academic pieces on women writers who have made significant contributions to literature and thought, enjoy Octavia Cade\u2019s uniquely creative approach to literary criticism in Mary Shelley Makes a Monster: Conversation<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[357,830,2093,3136,328,4417,4418,828],"class_list":["post-7515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bram-stoker-awards","tag-feminist-horror","tag-horror-poetry","tag-literary-criticism","tag-mary-shelley","tag-mary-shelley-makes-a-monster","tag-octavia-cade","tag-women-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7515"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7533,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7515\/revisions\/7533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}