[Arkhaine_kupo]

> The entire premise depends on him being a monster

Have you read the book? She emphasises how pretty all the body parts that Victor picked were.

[josefresco]

>His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

As I said, the contrast between "pretty" or "human" traits vs "monster" just wasn't there.