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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I really liked the premise of this story - a fantasy Sherlock Holmes with a rogue boxer ghost in his underwear as a stand-in for Watson. The mystery was mysterious. There were things in jars. There were very interesting characters. And then...it just didn't really go anywhere satisfactory. The overall tone was all over the place. It felt snarky and dark and then it turned to just plain dark with very little relief. I felt myself rushing to the end, not because I wanted to know what would happen next, but because I desperately needed the violence to end. I look forward to seeing where this author goes, but this didn't feel like a cohesive finished novel yet.
dark
tense
medium-paced
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
adventurous
medium-paced
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was really close to a DNF at first because the author has a writing style that I wasn't jiving with. However, I always try to give books a fair chance, and once I was 50+ pages in I was hooked.
The strength of this book isn't in the mystery, but in the characters. Bridie, Cora and Ruby were all fascinating and delightful, and I loved their interactions. The romance will make your heart ache, it's so tender and also completely doomed right from the start.
The reveal of the final mystery didn't get the page time it deserved in my opinion. Considering the length of the book, the author could've spent a bit more time letting us sit with the revelation, but instead we're rushed through to the ending. Instead of spending pages on that, the book has way more description than I like, so I skipped over some of that. It could've definitely been shorter.
The strength of this book isn't in the mystery, but in the characters. Bridie, Cora and Ruby were all fascinating and delightful, and I loved their interactions. The romance will make your heart ache, it's so tender and also completely doomed right from the start.
The reveal of the final mystery didn't get the page time it deserved in my opinion. Considering the length of the book, the author could've spent a bit more time letting us sit with the revelation, but instead we're rushed through to the ending. Instead of spending pages on that, the book has way more description than I like, so I skipped over some of that. It could've definitely been shorter.
This too 800 years too long.
I’ll admit, whilst I was reading this I was going through a lot of not great things mentally. That caused me to slow down my reading and not focus to hard on it. However, this book did not give me a lot to hold on to.
Usually, I love fantasy, Victorian-age, true crime, and detective novels. This had all of those things and should have been the best book ever. But it really, really, really wasn’t.
The writing seemed like it was trying too hard. Everything was over the top Victorian with the word choice and the obsession with description. I felt like I was reading Hawthorne or Tolkein.
I finished it, but it dragged me by the hair to the end. I am not sure if my intense apathy was the reason this didn’t resonate with me, or if it just isn’t that well written.
The world may never know.
I’ll admit, whilst I was reading this I was going through a lot of not great things mentally. That caused me to slow down my reading and not focus to hard on it. However, this book did not give me a lot to hold on to.
Usually, I love fantasy, Victorian-age, true crime, and detective novels. This had all of those things and should have been the best book ever. But it really, really, really wasn’t.
The writing seemed like it was trying too hard. Everything was over the top Victorian with the word choice and the obsession with description. I felt like I was reading Hawthorne or Tolkein.
I finished it, but it dragged me by the hair to the end. I am not sure if my intense apathy was the reason this didn’t resonate with me, or if it just isn’t that well written.
The world may never know.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix