Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - Things in Jars

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Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

8 reviews

jodar's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

I enjoyed the writing style, which evoked the Victorian gothic, creepy and putrid atmosphere very effectively, even poetically at times. The MC is an attractive personality: decisive, intelligent, prepared to put herself at risk for others’ sake. She doesn’t get everything right, but acts reasonably in light of what she knows or suspects.

As I expected with this type of novel, there’s little nuance in the characterisation: the good are good, the bad are bad. But one character struck me as silly and absurd: the MC’s ghost friend cum love interest. I’m bemused by some British authors’ fondness for this sort of fatuous supernaturalism. The MC–ghost–policeman love triangle felt puerile and ridiculous.

At the end I came away feeling that overall this is a great, well-told story with a satisfying conclusion, but with one major flaw.

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sarahgordon327's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

This book was a fun mix of historical fiction and magical realism. I loved the female lead and even more, I loved the relationship between her and the ghost-like male lead character.

A little disappointed on that end that we were not left with more to their relationship. The end was too quick to move me to emotion.

This plot had a great backbone, beautiful prosaic descriptions, but to me, the action moved a little too fast and the in-between dragged.

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clarabooksit's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

I want to say I really enjoyed it because I did—I kept flipping back and forth between the audiobook and physically reading it because I couldn’t put it down—but I also thought parts of it were really disappointing.

I loved the main character, Bridie, and wanted to know everything about her and what her connection was to Ruby, the ghost who was haunting her/looking out for her. I loved the world-building—Kidd exquisitely uses all the senses to capture a time and place—the grungy, macabre Victorian medical setting, and the eeriness of how myth and man entwine and who really is the monster.

But the plot was predictable with clunky foreshadowing, and I didn’t care about the machinations of the other characters. I just wanted more Bridie and Ruby. There were also a few too many characters and not enough space given to properly flesh them all out. And while I dug the atmosphere overall, I do wish more explanations were given for the fantastical elements.

I don’t know. I liked it but the flaws nag at me. Maybe it was just so well paced that my enjoyment outweighed my disappointment. A perfectly paced book makes up for a lot.

If you like historical fiction with magical realism, potent world-building, characters you can root for and/or gothic vibes, then I’d say check this one out. But if you like to be surprised by mysteries, this one probably isn’t for you.

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foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-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

4.25

This book gave me Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries meets Alias Grace and The Quick. Much darker and more gruesome than I expected, definitely further on the Dickensian spectrum of the Victorian era. Loved the different storytelling perspectives throughout and I found the is or isn’t elements of magical realism kept me pretty engaged. So happy to have done this book as a buddy read with my mom @kirstensviews as I probably would’ve DNF’d this book without her as it took me about 1/3 of the book to get into the story and find my footing in Bridie’s world. But once I did, I was hooked! Just a heads up though—check the storygraph content warnings as there are many of them!

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liaweneryniel's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Disclaimer:

As always, the opinion this review is entirely and completely my own. If you have a different one, please let me know. I like to know different opinions and discuss them. So please, don’t be offended if this book is your favourite book of the year or ever. Let’s agree to disagree. I bet you don’t like some of the books I love, and I don’t get offended. I might pester you, but I will never ever be offended. Your opinion is valid, just like mine :-)

Things in Jars by Jess Kidd was our Book Club January Read. When it won at the end of December, I was looking forward to this book. It had everything I love about a book: an awesome setting, an interesting plot and a hint of supernatural. That’s what the blurb promised and only kinda gave me.

Don’t get me wrong, the characters and setting were amazing only the plot was lacking. But let’s start at the beginning.

Bridie Devine is a female detective living in a version of Victorian London. She has gone through very much in her short life and now wears a hideous bonnet and appears to be a widow (I didn’t buy that for one second. She’s just not the type^^) Anyway, she is solving strange crimes that a police officer she knows, Inspector Rose, tells her about. This time though, she is consulted by Doctor Harbin. He employs her to solve the disappearance of Christabel Berwick, the secret daughter of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick. Christabel seems to have some kind of supernatural powers and collectors of curiosities and freak show circuses are after her. Together with her seven-foot-tall housemaid Cora and a ghost, Ruby Doyle, Bridie sets out to solve the mystery.

Nearly the whole plot takes place in London and Jess Kidd is able to capture the dark and sooty atmosphere of Victorian London. More than once I felt like I was seeing the mysterious streets that wind itself through London like a labyrinth. London is one of my passions and I loved the descriptive telling of the surroundings. It’s dark, gritty and dirty – everything I love about descriptions about Victorian London. We have the foster father apothecary who appears to be some sort of alchemist and whose wife takes in the children of the streets, caring for them as well as the dead boxer who appears at Bridie’s side and aids her in her investigation. Cora, the tall housemaid, who was rescued from a freak show completes the cast of illustrious side characters who help to make this London feel alive. Boxing and freak shows were for entertainment in Victorian London and the people were fascinated by the sinister and macabre. No wonder that a girl with supposed supernatural powers is kidnapped. The money you could get from her being part of your freak show, if her powers are real or not.

This book is extremely gory. Bodily fluids, blood, pus and everything you can think of are flying around. And I would also say that a trigger warning is in order for certain parts. Victorian London was not kind of its inhabitants, especially women. But if you enjoy gothic and gory books, this one’s for you.

The characters are great. Bridie is extraordinary. She reminds me a bit of Madame Vastra of the Paternoster Gang. Walking around dressed as a widow, smoking pipes and solving crimes, Bridie is nothing like how women were expected to be. I especially liked the part where she disguised herself as a man to be able to visit a theatre. Women were not allowed to practice medicine, yet Bridie was interested and was even taken to the theatre when she was younger. I visited one of those theatres when I was in London and I have to tell you that it’s all blood and gore in this time, but Bridie is fascinated by it. Bridie is unconventional and doesn’t let anyone dictate what she can and can’t do, especially no man. She has learned from a young age that she herself is her best ally and trusts only very few people. She’s a strong female character but also flawed.

Cora is Bridie’s perfect ally. She was rescued by Bridie from a freak show and ever since then Bridie hasn’t had a decent meal :-D But Cora is very loyal and would do everything for Bridie. She is inherently good and tries to do the right thing. She is fearless and just as strong a character as Bridie.

And then there’s Ruby Doyle. Bridie encounters Ruby at the beginning of the book in a cemetery. Nothing special about that but for the fact that Ruby is dead. He was hit over the head by someone and died. Now his ghost aids Bridie in her investigation and only she can see him. He is only half-dressed, and his tattoos are alive. The mermaid for example swims around his body. He helps Bridie by being able to walk through doors and scouting out the houses and places Bridie visits. He goes on and on that they know each other but Bridie doesn’t remember him. At the beginning she ignores Ruby but while the plot thickens, she slowly kinda falls in love with him. It is a strange concept but hey it’s supernatural, so *shrug*

The other characters are well developed as well. The Inspector is love-struck but still respects Bridie. The characters that shaped Bridie’s past all make sense and you can understand why Bridie ended up the way she is.

So, setting amazing, characters well developed, leaves the story and there is the big but coming. The story just didn’t work well for me. Victorian London plus supernatural sound like the perfect combination to me. I love this kind of books but this one was just okay. The whole supernatural felt like an afterthought. I mean Christabel is said to be supernatural from the beginning but the solution in the end and all the other supernatural happenings feel like Jess Kidd wrote about Victorian London, got lost and then remembered that she had a story to finish. Some of Bridie’s statements didn’t fit either. She readily accepted Ruby as a ghost once she stopped ignoring him and even relied on his abilities but then when the water was rising in London, apparently an effect of Christabel, she dismisses it as nonsense. I couldn’t quite make sense of it. In the end I was more interested in Bridie’s past and how she knew Ruby then in the solution of the mystery.

And then the ending left questions open again. It was frustrating not to know why a character had been introduced. I mean you expect some kind of solution. Otherwise, the character just feels like a plot device that was there to get the story going. Now come to think of it, it’s actually two characters where this applies. I leave it to you to decide which ones I mean :-D Spoilers and all that.

Furthermore, the sentences were sometimes hard to understand. I had to look up multiple words in one sentence. I’m no native English speaker but I consider myself more than fluent, but this took the cake. I had to reread several sentences and sometimes even had to jump back a chapter or two, reading it again to understand what was really happening.

Sometimes, Kidd’s style of writing reminded me of Tolkien: Describing everything in extreme detail with florid metaphors.

Still, this book gets three books from me. Even though the story failed to wow me and sometimes felt like an afterthought, the setting and interesting characters more than made up for the fact that the story didn’t grip me.

I know that this book was praised by other reviewers. So, I would encourage you to read other reviews as well. Sometimes, everything is right, and the story is wrong, which doesn’t say that I didn’t enjoy the book. I really did. I don’t know if I will read another book by Jess Kidd, but you never know.

Without wax,

Liawèn

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