Reviews with content warning for Incest - A Study in Scarlet Women

Reviews tagging 'Incest'

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas

16 reviews

molsreads's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

4.0

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blewballoon's review

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mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

I am being a bit generous with my rating for how much I personally enjoyed the book, but that's based on the writing quality and how I can see how other people would like it if they aren't bothered by the things that bothered me. I really wanted to like this, but unfortunately I just kept having issue after issue with it.

Our character introduction is Charlotte getting caught sleeping with a married man. Infidelity really bothers me, so I knew it was gonna be an uphill battle to try to like her. We then spend a big chunk of the first part of the book in a bunch of other character's perspectives (mostly Charlotte's sister, so I was a little confused as to who the main character actually was for a bit) before we even get to hers and learn her poor rationale for her choices. So smart yet so dumb? An argument could be made that maybe the author is going for her being smart with facts and riddles, but bad at interpreting emotions and human behavior. She seems to be strongly coded as autistic as well. There's a bunch of casual fat-phobia sprinkled around because one of Charlotte's other main character traits is that she really likes food, but of course it would be bad if she got too plump. 🙄

I was going to DNF the book, but then

Mrs. Watson became a character and I loved her and how she stepped in to help Charlotte so much.

I got really into it at that point. Unfortunately, that turned out to

be an orchestrated situation by someone else, so the most redeeming part of the book for me turned out to be a lie.

Most of the investigation of the main mystery is not done by Charlotte herself, but by an Inspector. Huge chunks of the book are just him interviewing people and considering their testimony. He's fine at his job. He feels sad and surprised when

he realizes that his wife may have had any other desires apart from being his wife and that women might actually think about things.

I could not get on board with the love interest. I get that this is historical England and people were in unhappy marriages, but I do not feel the chemistry, I do not feel the friendship, I feel like I'm being told that I should want them to be together (as master and mistress? 🤢) but I don't feel why I should.

The resolution to the big mystery is pretty dark in subject matter, I wasn't expecting that, but I do think it was talked about in a remote enough way not to be overly disturbing.

I think the author did overall do a decent job of coming up with puzzles and mysteries and tying things together for Charlotte and the other characters to solve. I like that other characters had skills and specialized knowledge to contribute,

like Mrs. Watson with her ear for accents and acting/costuming skills to create disguises, and Lord Ingram's photo development and manipulation talent.

I think the writing quality was good apart from the jarring switches between perspective and how little perspective Charlotte herself gets.

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ramakn22's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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knit_the_resistance's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I do not recommend this as an audiobook. It's very confusing to try to keep the characters straight. I enjoyed it. I did not see the plot twist coming at all and it was really disconcerting.

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