Shortly before winter break, I was completing one of my final assignments of the semester and simultaneously watching Brittany Broski’s podcast, “The Broski Report,” as I typically am. In this episode, she happened to be speaking in great detail about Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” which was released in October of 2025. As a long-term fan of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” I had already been quite excited to watch this adaptation starring Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth, but Brittany’s enthusiasm and passion for the movie convinced me to completely stop the assignment I had been working on to watch it right then. I should have known that I would feel similarly about the movie as Brittany, but I was so impressed and impacted by the movie that I ultimately decided to scrap the assignment I had begun and instead rave about “Frankenstein.”

Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” or “The Modern Prometheus” is a world-renowned classic, challenging issues of science and morality through the tale of Victor Frankenstein and his ‘monster,’ a reanimated corpse born from science instead of natural processes of birth. However, in his obsession with creating life, Victor Frankenstein fails to account for the features that make humans human. The creature is completely new and ‘unmolded,’ as Frankenstein would describe and Victor is responsible for teaching the creature kindness and empathy in addition to the cognitive skills he prioritizes. Instead, with the creature’s lack of prior experience or understanding of the people and things around him, Victor writes him off as unintelligent and aggressive. In horror of his “failure,” Victor attempts to kill the creature, fails and instead abandons him, leaving the creature alone to discover the world. 

While Victor views the creature as a violent monster, the way he truly interacts with the world and offers compassion to others, unlike Victor, with seemingly no need to, was completely fascinating. It is not until he is met with continuous unprovoked violence that he is altered. The creature learns solely through observation, and begins to develop his own understanding of the world: “Maybe this was the way of the world: it would hunt you and kill you just for being who you are.” While I had already read the story in high school, revisiting it now, it was so much more impactful to see someone function in a world that so often treats him with violence and hate. What really stuck with me emotionally, however, was how the creature was able learn of the cruelty of the world and still find beauty where others seem to miss it—an ability that sometimes seems impossible, especially now.

My experience in revisiting this classic has stuck with me far beyond the content of the movie itself. As a Literary Studies major, I have a deep appreciation and love for literature, like that of Mary Shelley, but I struggle to find time within my daily life to stop and begin reading, however much I know I will enjoy it; it can be easy to begin to view tasks like reading as an inconvenience in a life that is already so stressful and overwhelming. However, as the New Year approached, I began to consider my rewarding experience in revisiting “Frankenstein” and decided to reframe the way I thought about reading. Call it somewhat of a New Year’s Resolution, which I typically detest, but I have begun thinking about how many of these fulfilling experiences I’ve missed out on each time I decided to lie on my phone rather than pick up one of the several books on my shelf. Instead of viewing reading as some kind of chore, I’ve begun to view avoiding reading as a disservice to myself. 

Reading books, especially some of the classics, can be incredibly intimidating. At the end of the podcast I mentioned earlier, Brittany Broski discussed this idea quite a bit: while reading can feel like a feat, it’s important to remember that literature is truly for everyone. It can be written by anyone; it can be read by anyone. I look forward to entering the new year with this mindset and I hope to continue to learn and challenge myself with books that feel out of reach. I encourage others to try the same in their life, whether relating to reading or something else that challenges them and brings them joy.