Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - The Lost Apothecary

I liked the combination of the modern day story and the past one, but maybe it switched a little too much between them. I personally could have gone without the

marriage struggles and cheating of the husband.

Nice read, with a slow to medium pace.

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kspag206's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.75

Okay so the only reason I’m flirting with giving this a 3 is because of the ending: the plot twist, and the fact that after page 188 the rest of the book was significantly better written than the 187 pages prior.

What I liked: complicated story line. The plot twist truly caught me off guard there were two. Didn’t see either one coming. The overall concept is amazing.

What I didn’t like: the writing felt overly descriptive most of the time. Describing actions and feelings to a nauseating degree. Repeating the same things over and over again even though you just read it a chapter before , I wasn’t the biggest fan of Caroline, I genuinely didn’t care that much about her story. Too much emphasis on periods, pregnancy and miscarriages. Idk, I just didn’t like that. There is so much more to being a woman than that, and if this is supposed to be some big feminist book, it bugs me that the most biological aspect of being a woman is a main plot point.

It was 2 stars until the last 50 pages. If someone with more experience wrote it, I’d like it much more. Would make a fantastic movie.

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stacy_es's review against another edition

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adventurous informative mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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crystal83087's review against another edition

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jatrojak's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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mbmayo's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

This book is told from multiple perspectives. Caroline's story is set in the present day, while Eliza and Nella's story takes place primarily in 1791. The two stories are connected by a physical object, a small glass vial from Nella's apothecary shop that Caroline finds two centuries later in the River Thames. Like many stories told like this, some perspectives are more interesting than others. Caroline drove me nuts with her choices.

From the very start, she uses the example of giving up her application to Cambridge's history program as an example of her husband pointing her away from her dreams towards more "reliable" "safe" choices. As though there are no universities offering graduate history programs in Ohio. She also talks about boxing up her novels, because as we all know responsible adults don't read old Victorian books! We never hear anything good about James, no indication as to why she married him and stayed married for 10 years. I feel like this was a missed opportunity from the author to make me care about the relationship.

Also, as she works through the mystery, she keeps fantasizing that if she solves it maybe someone will give a job as a historian researcher. This line of thinking would make sense if she were the twelve year old in the story, but she's thirty something. At the end of the book, she applies to Cambridge in a night. Truly I should not have expected realism by this point in the book, but as someone who has applied to undergraduate and graduate level programs, it takes more than a few hours. But of course she gets in.

I also don't understand why she threw the glass vial away (I assume something about closing that chapter of her life.) or why Eliza ends up with twins at the end (women wanting babies is a present theme in this book, but I don't recall it being important to Eliza).

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andloveistoolong's review against another edition

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dark hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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