Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - The Essex Serpent

This feels less like a novel and more like an observation of the intersecting lives of the characters over a period of time. The presence and fear of the serpent is pervasive, it changes people’s behaviour and impacts the way they live their lives. The writing is excellent, the narrative interesting enough to be unpredictable and it held my attention, but not engrossing enough to read it fast. I could have happily read a chapter a month and kept pace with the passage of time.

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rieviolet's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I went into the book not really knowing what to expect (it's a book that I've seen recommended many times and wanted to give it a try) and now that I've finished it I can say that it was a nice enough read and clearly well written and researched but it just fell a bit flat for me in terms of story.

Unfortunately, I did not care much about the two main characters and their relationship and I was more intrested in the various side characters, their portrayal and plot lines. Also, on various occasions, the
choices and actions made by the characters left me very perplexed and just felt a bit out of place.

Overall, I quite appreciated the writing stlye/prose, although there were some segments where the author narrated in a sort of sequence each characters' progress within the story and those parts I found a bit dragging.

Also, I didn't particularly enjoy the detailed description of injuries and medical procedures, maybe they seem quite tame for many people but I am squeamish and so I found it really difficult to go through those parts.

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maddiehansen's review

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challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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nnniro411's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I am unsure how to feel about this book. I think if I was trying to read it I wouldn't have been able to get through it. Even listening to the audiobook was a struggle. It was a bizarre story that I wish had more action. Honestly I think I went into it thinking this was going to be more of an creature searching adventure when in reality it was much more slower paced with more of a metaphorical plot than an actual creature. I tuned out a lot listening to this and still feel completely at a loss on what I think of this book.

It honestly feels more like a book I would have been forced to read for English in high school than a book I would have read on my own.

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leahmeeko's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book was strangely beautiful. At first I thought it would be too slow but after around 60 pages I was hooked. There is a lot to digest and I am entirely glad that I had the experience of doing so. The characters and the settings are so well-crafted that I could picture everything and everyone; I never once felt that the descriptions were too much. In fact, some of them were insanely wonderful (I especially enjoyed the descriptions of Stella throughout the book). While the layout is slightly strange (it’s divided into parts which are subdivided into months, which is nice except each month starts with chapter one again so I was never too sure how many chapters in I actually was) the addition of letters between the characters solidified each of them and made the story feel all the more real. There are many characters and a lot of sub plots, each of which were interesting, never too long, and wrapped up at the end (although I feel like some of it was potentially a little hurried). It’s a historical fiction with elements of mystery and a little bit of romance and I loved every aspect of it. I felt torn over what I wanted for each of the characters and how I wanted their relationships to progress but I think that was the point- it seems that the characters themselves are equally torn and. It highlights the relationship between religion and science, and also touched on feminism. I genuinely don’t know how to fully capture how I feel about this book, and while some aspects I’ve mentioned did make it drop that 0.25 of a star (kind of a ridiculous amount), it was ultimately incredibly hard to put down and wonderfully unique.
EDIT: it’s been months since i’ve read this and i’ve decided to change it to a 5 star review, purely because every time i think about it i feel so much love for it and ultimately i don’t think a book has to be perfect to be perfect for you

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