- The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein
by Kenneth Oppel
I grew up reading lots of Kenneth Oppel, starting from at around Grade 6 or 7 ... I just remember at RSS, Mrs. Popoff reading to the class "Airborn". That was a pretty cool book. And then when I went to Crowe I rediscovered Mr. Oppel and the subsequent sequels to "Airborn", "Skybreaker" and "Starclimber"!
After that I read through his Darkwing series, featuring herds of bats and strange creatures. And more recently I bought and read the chimpanzee/anthropology-like book "Half Brother".
All he books, needless to say, are great, adventure-packed and set in wonderful words of fantasy grounded in some truth.
So when I started working at the library I noticed one of his newest titles "This Dark Endeavour", lying lonely and low on the general fiction! So I took it out for a read!
This book is fantastic, the premise itself, intrigued me greatly. The story follow a young teenage Victor Frankenstein, living in the chateau Frankenstein with his family. Joining his adventures are his twin brother Konrad, good friend Henry and adopted cousin Elizabeth! Here in the novel you learn a backstory to the darkness of Victor Frankenstein and find new found purpose in his past that lead to his future as a experimenter or magicks and science.
Here is a book trailer released for "This Dark Endeavour":
Like Oppel's other novels that I've read this one is packed with excitement, but what I enjoyed the most with this book was the character arcs, writing style and maturity of the story!
The characters (well really just character being Victor) are well fleshed out in this novel! Victor is such a well written and dynamic character! His complete sort of fragmentation of morality and desire, good and bad and right and wrong is fascinating, and I really enjoyed the alchemic aspects to the book! Victor is such a relatable character I think, especially for young adult readers who are going through a stage in their life where emotions are running wild and important choices are being made. You get that feeling from Victor and at times when he goes through this internal struggle of what he should do or not do, this sort of feeling is very reminiscent to me of growing up and being super dramatic!
Also, since this is a period piece dating somewhere in the 18th century, Oppel's writing is ripe with ye old English time sayings and I loved it! The way this is all written is charming, romantic and delightful. It takes you in a time machine to a different time and a different place entirely! It's lovely.
After reading this though, even given the sort of mature themes of love, morality and death, I definitely felt that this book belonged in the YA section of the library.
All in all, this was an enjoyable book to read and also very enlightening to me about the history of Frankenstein. It also made me want to continue the saga by reading the original Shelley version of Frankenstein. I'll have to add that to my reading list!
Thank you, again Mr. Oppel for a stunning novel! 5/5 to you good sir! And for those of you who haven't read any of Kenneth Oppel's books, I suggest "Airborn"! That is a wonderful read!
Happy reading!
by Kenneth Oppel
I grew up reading lots of Kenneth Oppel, starting from at around Grade 6 or 7 ... I just remember at RSS, Mrs. Popoff reading to the class "Airborn". That was a pretty cool book. And then when I went to Crowe I rediscovered Mr. Oppel and the subsequent sequels to "Airborn", "Skybreaker" and "Starclimber"!
After that I read through his Darkwing series, featuring herds of bats and strange creatures. And more recently I bought and read the chimpanzee/anthropology-like book "Half Brother".
All he books, needless to say, are great, adventure-packed and set in wonderful words of fantasy grounded in some truth.
So when I started working at the library I noticed one of his newest titles "This Dark Endeavour", lying lonely and low on the general fiction! So I took it out for a read!
This book is fantastic, the premise itself, intrigued me greatly. The story follow a young teenage Victor Frankenstein, living in the chateau Frankenstein with his family. Joining his adventures are his twin brother Konrad, good friend Henry and adopted cousin Elizabeth! Here in the novel you learn a backstory to the darkness of Victor Frankenstein and find new found purpose in his past that lead to his future as a experimenter or magicks and science.
Here is a book trailer released for "This Dark Endeavour":
Like Oppel's other novels that I've read this one is packed with excitement, but what I enjoyed the most with this book was the character arcs, writing style and maturity of the story!
The characters (well really just character being Victor) are well fleshed out in this novel! Victor is such a well written and dynamic character! His complete sort of fragmentation of morality and desire, good and bad and right and wrong is fascinating, and I really enjoyed the alchemic aspects to the book! Victor is such a relatable character I think, especially for young adult readers who are going through a stage in their life where emotions are running wild and important choices are being made. You get that feeling from Victor and at times when he goes through this internal struggle of what he should do or not do, this sort of feeling is very reminiscent to me of growing up and being super dramatic!
Also, since this is a period piece dating somewhere in the 18th century, Oppel's writing is ripe with ye old English time sayings and I loved it! The way this is all written is charming, romantic and delightful. It takes you in a time machine to a different time and a different place entirely! It's lovely.
After reading this though, even given the sort of mature themes of love, morality and death, I definitely felt that this book belonged in the YA section of the library.
All in all, this was an enjoyable book to read and also very enlightening to me about the history of Frankenstein. It also made me want to continue the saga by reading the original Shelley version of Frankenstein. I'll have to add that to my reading list!
Thank you, again Mr. Oppel for a stunning novel! 5/5 to you good sir! And for those of you who haven't read any of Kenneth Oppel's books, I suggest "Airborn"! That is a wonderful read!
Happy reading!
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