Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Things in Jars

Diverse Gothic mystery! There really isn't a way for me to not use the word "romp" to describe this book, at least as far as the plot goes. The action clips along nicely, the little discomfiting supernatural details are engrossing, the gruesome past events are hard to stomach, and the voice--the voice!!--is so strong in this book. Characters' and general narration both. Take a look at a preview to see what I mean.

I will definitely keep my eye out for more of Jess Kidd's work in the future.

Content Warnings

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.

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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evnfig's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

Reading this book was like building a relationship: at first things were slow and awkward but interesting, then things got easier and we grew to understand each other more, then, when finished, we parted having thoroughly enjoyed each other's company, hoping to see each other again someday.

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lena_loves_reading's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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sierrasahara's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

I really struggled with what to rate this book so I'll start with what I loved. I loved the main story and the characters of Bridie, Cora and Ruby. The start of this book is very slow and it's hard to get into, I told myself if I still wasn't intrigued by pg. 100 I'd give up but by then the mystery and the story really picked up and I knew I wanted to finish it. As others have said, the writing/language used is very hard to understand at times. I would re-read a sentence 3 times trying to figure out what it was trying to say before giving up and moving on. It was hard to keep track of all the characters and sometimes they'd be described with such vague descriptions like you were supposed to know who they were but with so many characters I had no clue. I was also disappointed in the reveal of who Ruby Doyle was as it seemed like a big plot point at the beginning of the book but after the reveal I was still unsure who he was supposed to be.
All in all solid 3.75 to balance out the things I liked and what I didn't, maybe I'll re-read it after I finish my reading goal to try to patch some of things I missed.

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defcon's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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mandkips's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

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