Name: Poor Things
Rating: 4.015 (50 reviews)

Alasdair Gray

Set in and around Glasgow and the Meditteranean in the early 1880s, this unusual novel describes the love lives of two Scottish doctors and a 25-year-old woman who has been created from human remains by one of them. Winner of the 1992 Whitbread Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. Illustrations.

Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer

Poor Things

Grace Frost

"Small, awkward McCandless fell as passionately in love with God as I had done. He loved me too, of course, but only because he saw me as God's female part - the part he could embrace and enter. But God was the first great love of his life, and the love was not returned."

"You, dear reader, have now two accounts to choose between and there can be no doubt which is most probable. My second husband's story positively stinks of all that was morbid in that most morbid of centuries, the nineteenth."

Rania

Soon to Be a Major Film

Hannah Bateman

Hello to everyone else who is reading this after having seen the film. I hope you were as pleasantly surprised as I was.

This a quite layered and complex humorous novel. It is a - somewhat - successful commentary on female bodily autonomy and misogyny, as well as capitalist society. It is every explicitly political which is refreshing - a sad statement, given that this is what a novel like this is supposed to be in the first place. It manages to pack quite a bit within its short page count and I can only imagine how much more fun it would be to unpick in a reading group.

Hello to everyone else who is reading this after having seen the film. I hope you were as pleasantly surprised as I was.

This a quite layered and complex humorous novel. It is a - somewhat - successful commentary on female bodily autonomy and misogyny, as well as capitalist society. It is every explicitly political which is refreshing - a sad statement, given that this is what a novel like this is supposed to be in the first place. It manages to pack quite a bit within its short page count and I can only imagine how much more fun it would be to unpick in a reading group.

What strange secret made rich, beautiful, tempestuous Bella Baxter irresistible to the poor Scottish medical student Archie McCandless? Was it her mysterious origin in the home of his monstrous friend Godwin Baxter, the genius whose voice could perforate eardrums? This story of true love and scientific daring whirls the reader from the private operating-theatres of late-Victorian Glasgow through aristocratic casinos, low-life Alexandria and a Parisian bordello, reaching an interrupted climax in a Scottish church.

Princess Doe 

Oh the book is LEAGUES better than the film. 

After seeing the film, I was incessantly bothered by the sense that something was amiss - that there was a misreading of the source material someway somehow. Then again, I thought to myself, I had been following Yorgos' filmography up until that point, and had developed a fondness over his style. His last movie, The Favourite, is one of my favorite films, in fact. So I just thought it was an artistic choice to go down the path he and Emma did. Still, it left a sour taste in my mouth. This quandary persisted in my brain, that I was compelled to pick up the book and read it myself, if only to confirm or disavow my suspicions.

It's bonkers to me how the film's creators chose to go with McCandless' side of the story, when the book itself is a clear criticism of "nice guys" having no regard for women's autonomy and thinking their judgment better than the woman's. 

veronica

Oh the book is LEAGUES better than the film. 

After seeing the film, I was incessantly bothered by the sense that something was amiss - that there was a misreading of the source material someway somehow. Then again, I thought to myself, I had been following Yorgos' filmography up until that point, and had developed a fondness over his style. His last movie, The Favourite, is one of my favorite films, in fact. So I just thought it was an artistic choice to go down the path he and Emma did. Still, it left a sour taste in my mouth. This quandary persisted in my brain, that I was compelled to pick up the book and read it myself, if only to confirm or disavow my suspicions.

It's bonkers to me how the film's creators chose to go with McCandless' side of the story, when the book itself is a clear criticism of "nice guys" having no regard for women's autonomy and thinking their judgment better than the woman's. 

Ryan Mateyk

One of the most, if not the most, creatively and wisely crafted books I’ve ever read. Such a fun unique take on Victorian sensationalism. Excited to see the big screen adaptation!

What a strange and incredible book. I loved it. 

Rebecca Harwood

An excellent read. Takes ideas from other books and masterfully uses them to create an original story about what it means to be a woman who aspires to be free and love whoever she wants. 

Lorenzo Barretta

An excellent read. Takes ideas from other books and masterfully uses them to create an original story about what it means to be a woman who aspires to be free and love whoever she wants. 

Highly recommended.

Stick around to hear Bella/Victoria's perspective at the end.

g.m.

A book set within its own book, footnotes, acknowledgements, amazing build up of fiction that seemed rather edging on true life. Amazing how I had never heard of this book if it werent for Yorgos Lanthimos so thank you Alasdair Gray for this exquisite yet at times comedic journey, and thank you Yorgos for helping put up visual characters in my brain.

diya

the first book i have read and completed in 2024, it is one that reminds me of how for centuries, not much has change. still men thinks they can dictate what is to be of the world, how those in power still think inferior of others who are also human beings. how cruel humanity is. and how we are all poor things. 

Kira L

When I started this book, I had low expectations about the storyline because what else can there be about a doctor bringing an "erotomaniac" woman back to life with her baby's brain? It never fell into predictable territory, not a single time. 'Poor Things' is an expectational criticism of men's idiocy, especially in the Victorian Period. Victoria/Bella is such a strong character, especially in her letter, I could easily read a thousand books from her perspective.

Poor Things Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer

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