Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - My Dear Henry: A Jekyll & Hyde Remix

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

My Dear Henry: A Jekyll & Hyde Remix by Kalynn Bayron

18 reviews

jelkebooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

I received a galley of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This, sadly enough, did not work for me. I really wanted it to though. I feel like I need to say that I have not read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but I am of course familair with the basic story. I think the author did a great job diversefying the story, and including themes of racism and conversion therapy within the story and character motivations. Those elements were BY FAR the most interesting elements of this book. The rest just didn't work for me.
To begin with, I just didn't connect with Kalynn Bayron's writing in this one. I had a hard time getting really pulled into the story. I also feel like at times this book kind of felt more like different scenes poorly stitched together, rather than an actual consistant story. Therefore I felt like I missed out on so much, and it overall just felt a bit odd to me.
I also didn't really connect to any of the characters. I feel like all characters except Henry were extremely underdeveloped and I could not tell you a single thing about them. This is especially bad as Henry isn't our protagonist either, that's Gabriel. Can I tell you anything about him besides the fact that he's deeply in love with Henry? Nope! That kept me from fully getting invested in this book as well. On top of that the romance between Henry and Gabriel also was extremely underdeveloped, which made the fact that Gabriel's only character motivation for his actions was his love for Henry feel kind of flat. So yeah, this book didn't really work for me despite me really wanting to like it.

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mallorypen's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

Though I'm familiar with the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I have never read the source material. That said, the concept of trying to divorce oneself from facets of one's personality because they are found socially unacceptable was used in a really interesting way in this book.

As a YA novel, I did get the feeling that elements of the original story may have been toned down appropriately for the audience, but overall this novel did not pull its punches. The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde being used as a metaphor for conversion therapy was dark, though incredibly cogent. Given that this was clearly called out as a "remixed classic" the plot twist wasn't the main focus of the story for my reading, but the implications behind why Henry's father chose to try and force Henry's queerness out of him via chemical treatment. The struggles of being queer on top of being systematically oppressed for being Black in a recently-post-slavery society were articulated in a way that allowed the reader to feel the characters' despair, anger, fear and frustration even on top of the horror elements of the story.

Gabriel as a narrator was sympathetic and easy to root for - I was invested in his joy in the early days of his relationship with Henry, the pain of his coldness, and his determination to stick to the mystery and figure out how to help.

Overall, though, I do wonder if the "remixed classic" approach hurt the storytelling a little. Again, not familiar with the source material, but I got the sense that the major plot points were written to align with the original story and in some ways, they didn't always translate smoothly in the novel's pacing. There were big swathes of the story where we were told things were happening, but we weren't given much detail to believe it. The scene where Gabriel is taken out of school and handed over to the lawyer as his clark was a little clunky; some of the interactions with Gabriel's cousin and school friend felt rushed. And honestly, the build up of the romance between Gabriel and Henry wasn't given a lot of screen time - given that all of Gabriel's actions thereafter are driven out of the intense love he has for Henry, I wanted more to relationship development to anchor his motivations.

I'm happy there was a

happy ending

for the most part, but it did take some of the gothic sting out of the tale overall.

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nathanae88's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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scrubsandbooks's review

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adventurous dark 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

Holy crap this book. Despite the fact that I read this in May, it would make for a perfect October read. Beautifully moody retelling of Jekyll and Hyde with queer Black MCs. I found myself completely drawn into and heavily invested in the romance. I want to say I really would love to read more Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde retellings, but I don't know how any of them would be able to live up to Kalynn Bayron's work!

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