Reviews tagging 'Incest'

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

23 reviews

ems_rxlibrary's review

adventurous challenging dark reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

This book checked a lot of boxes for me- multiple POVs from differing timelines, unsolved historical mystery, set in London, plus a mysterious apothecary? My being a compounding pharmacist might have heightened my interest a bit 😝. 
This novel is, at its core, a story of a woman scorned. Nella is an apothecary who learned everything she knows from her mother. They treated women’s ailments up until a man came into Nella’s life and turned it upside down. Now she helps women murder their adulterous husbands via poisons. 
Caroline has just found out an awful secret about her husband right before their 10th anniversary trip to London, so rather than cancel, she takes the trip on her own. On her first day she stumbles upon a mysterious vial with an engraving on it and decides to investigate it. While doing so she uncovers the secrets of the past. 
I loved Nella and Eliza’s storyline. Caroline’s wasn’t my most favorite, but I did like how it aligned with the past narrative. 
For being a debut novel I felt the writing was pretty strong. I sometimes feel that debut novels suffer from clunky dialogue or robotic storylines, but this one didn’t. I also appreciated the content at the end- the apothecary of poisons was just fun to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Incest, Cursing, Pedophilia, Vomit, and Miscarriage

hiddeninfantasy's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Medical content, Miscarriage, Murder, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Death, Death of parent, Infertility, Infidelity, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Incest

eldritch_flower's review

medium-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? No

3.0

 This book fell right in the middle of the road for me. In general though, the writing was decent, the plot was really good, and the characters were believable....ish. But the bad was like... bad.

Anyways, in this book we follow 3 POVs:
1. Nella - The woman who runs the man murdering apothecary in the 1700s.
2.Eliza - The 12 year old girl who's super cool with murder and acts way older than 12 in the 1700s
3. Caroline - Out modern day 'historian'

The book weaves their narratives together. It's medium-paced and easy to read(and listen to, the audiobook was really well done). And the plot can be summed up with "Lots of ladies who want to get pregnant don't get pregnant, men are murdered, and they all make the DUMBEST decisions."

And with all that, it was still interesting and I was able to at least finish the book. I'm sure this book is someone's favorite, but it's not mine. I feel like the concept is amazing, but the execution could have been so much better 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Toxic relationship, Blood, Incest, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Murder, Pedophilia, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Death, Infertility, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Child death, and Miscarriage

miagic_tome's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-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

3.75

An easy read, not too tense so I was able to listen to my audio version without many breaks. The voice actors were very talented and made the ten hours seem much shorter. The story, in my opinion, took itself a bit too seriously, but the themes it discussed called for a certain seriousness anyway. Definitely a thought-provoking story but I’m unsure if it was able to deliver all it wanted to on the views of women through history. In some places the feelings and events felt very “told” instead of “shown” which broke immersion, especially since it did great at showing instead of telling in other places. 

I was worried the content warnings would be too much for me but ended up being quite digestible with little-to-no active, graphic description of tough topics but more a retelling of them by the characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Infidelity

Moderate: Incest, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Pedophilia and Vomit

nehanaomi's review

emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, and Infertility

Moderate: Blood, Abortion, Emotional abuse, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Alcohol, and Child abuse

Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, and Incest

marinable_books's review

dark mysterious tense medium-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

Moderate: Blood, Incest, Infertility, Medical content, Misogyny, Pedophilia, and Sexual assault

korinnagarcia's review

dark hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Suicide attempt, Miscarriage, Infidelity, Chronic illness, and Blood

Minor: Incest, Pedophilia, and Sexual assault

sennaje's review

mysterious medium-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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Vomit

Moderate: Abortion and Incest

theespressoedition's review

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

This book is so incredibly beautiful and creative and honestly, I'm still thinking about it a week after finishing. It really is unlike anything I've ever read before. I appreciate the dual timelines and multiple points of view. It helped me grasp the full story, as well as come up with a few theories of my own as I read.

There was something really interesting about trying to unravel the mystery of Nella and Eliza - through the eyes of Caroline - while simultaneously reading their story as it happened. This is where the audiobook really made it an extra special experience since all three points of view were narrated by different actors. It made the story feel more rounded.

I was really drawn to Caroline. I kept wondering what would happen next in her story, even though Nella and Eliza were sort of the primary subjects. It was so interesting to see how she originally went on her holiday alone to escape her cheating husband and then wound up unraveling this incredible mystery of the lost apothecary. It made me want to make my way to London to discover some of the secret rooms behind rooms!

I look forward to reading this book again in the future and continuing to learn from it. It featured three incredibly fierce women, a heavy dose of mystery, a tiny bit of magical realism, and such beautiful writing!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, Death, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Infidelity, and Infertility

Minor: Suicide and Incest

v171's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

This was a captivating story about sisterhood, friendship, and women supporting women. It was fast paced and gripping from start to end. Though it was a bit one-note, I thought it was overall enjoyable. 

On paper, this book ticks all the boxes of an excellent story. Great construction, good writing, great pacing, and good character development. However the themes of the book were just so heavy handed that it was almost boring to read despite doing everything else fine. The overall theme of the book is women supporting women. All the women in the book were either great or redeemed, and all of the men of the book were pretty much trash. That's great, I love that. I can get down with that. However, it seemed that just about every chapter it had to be spelled out how important it was for women to support women. For some reason the author felt it necessary to both show and tell this central theme over and over again. It required no critical thinking of the reader. I found my eyes glazing over as I took in all of the information at face value. I didn't need to think about it twice, and at the end of the book I thought to myself "well that was nice." 

This is a good story, but what you see is what you get. Don't expect anything particularly thought provoking because what you're supposed to think is spelled out for you in the pages over and over again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Infertility, Medical content, Miscarriage, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexism, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Terminal illness

Minor: Pedophilia and Incest