Unusual book with some excellent language and storytelling. ( )

A brilliant construction made of equal parts Mary Shelley parody, feminist treatise, social history and literary conceit, where truth and fiction swallow each other whole and nothing is quite as it seems. ( )

Poor Things is difficult to classify. It would be gothic, but the style is not tortured; might be a fairy tale, but it's too realistic; could be a romance, but not in the way that term is usually used. I would never say it's a comedy, but in some ways it's very funny. At end, more of a classical tragedy, told from an unusual point of view.
It takes a lot for me to tell someone "you have to read this book." That said, if you like intelligent, original, quirky writing, you really *should* read this book. Plays with literary convention in an completely non-pretentious way. It's delightful. ( )

Such an odd, odd story. LOVED IT! Was at first very confused why it was recommended to me... ( )

Less sordid and psychologically painful than 1982 Janine (the author's favourite of his own books, and the only other by him that I've read), and hence possibly a better introduction to Gray.

Still painful, however. Gray is very bleak and Scottish; his books suggest that he has all the sympathies required to be a Socialist, combined with a deep and abiding distrust of - well, more like visceral disgust at - politics of any stripe, with the possible exception of Scottish independence. This illustrates it nicely: the core story is a macabre but touching Victorian tale of innocence and idealism, goodness and intelligence, going through trials but eventually winning out over wickedness to accomplish personal goals and do some small good in the world. The frame-story is about how the world stomps on innocent idealism with big hobnailed boots and shits on it, no matter how hard it tries, because it doesn't matter how enlightened individuals are if society at large clings to its malicious illusions; and, in any case, enlightenment needn't imply that people are very pleasant to each other. It's pretty manipulative; you get the nice glowy Dickens feeling at the end of the core story, and then the carpet's yanked from under your feet. Not a book to cheer one up.

At the same time it's good writing, at times beautifully poetic; it has a rock-solid sense of (and love for) its Glasgow setting, and it's full of the sort of appendices that make one squirm with glee on the author's behalf - f'rinstance, one of his characters, a Great Victorian General, is adorned with fabricated references from late-Victorian poets, such as Kipling.

He also illustrates his own books - pretty damn well - which I admire and respect and envy. The use of elements from Gray's Anatomy isn't as strong as it could have been, but it's the principle of the thing. ( )