Frankenstein

I'd grown up always knowing who Frankenstein and his monster were. I knew that the story was about a scientist who had created a big dumb monster made out of sewn together body parts. When I first began to read the story, I was expecting the version that I had always known. I was extremely surprised at how different the book really was. I kind of have mixed feelings about it, mostly leaning towards negative, though that may be just because I'm not a huge fan of horror in general. I found myself getting annoyed with Dr. Frankenstein more often than not. I felt that his personality, moods, and thoughts sometimes swung a bit too quickly, especially in the instance where he was creating his monster. At first, he had been so full of pride and excitement, and as soon as the monster was alive, he immediately fell into the character of "woe is me". A gradual change of his feelings might have made that a little less annoying.
I was pleasantly surprised at the Frankenstein monster. The fact that he was intelligent and sympathetic yet dangerous helped to create a very memorable character. Which, I figure, is obviously why the story is so famous.