Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Things in Jars

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.

Content Warnings

feathers4bookmarks's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

Graphic depictions of certain scenes. I wish I had content warnings, because I didn’t realize this story would include certain depictions- and I don’t think they were necessary to the storyline always.
I liked the underlying flaws of the protagonist, but the ending was dissatisfying in terms of the last paragraph. There was so much build up of a storyline between the protagonist and another character that I don’t think resolved well for the amount of hype in the text.

Content Warnings

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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