Reviews with content warning for Grief - The Essex Serpent

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

Content Warnings

elzibub's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.0

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