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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
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
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A fast paced murder mystery/thriller set amongst the mollies in Georgian London.
Generally speaking I greatly enjoyed it and was entralled and crying till the end.
The Rat is betraying the mollies and getting them brutally killed and it's Gabriel Griffin's job to find out who it is before it's too late.
It was fascinating finding out about the molly houses and the more grimy criminal world of this time. The dank atmosphere and danger were very evocative and the descriptions quite gruesome in places, maybe too much so. The book does a good job at keeping you guessing at The Rat's identity. Some of my more outlandish theories were that is was Thomas True and he had a split personality disorder, or pretended to, like Ed Norton in that film 'Primal Fear'. And his evil side was The Rat. Another theory was that he had an unknown evil identical twin brother who was doing the killing!
After all this speculation, the actual reveal of The Rat turned out to be a bit underwhelming and unconvincing for me.
Other slightly unconvincing aspects:
- Fump being a genius level code writer.
- the whole section with the Blackguard children was a bit odd and out of place. I thought we might be heading into the world of the mystical or supernatural and I couldn't fully picture what was going on.
Generally, I would have preferred if the story was actually a bit slower paced. I would have loved to spend more time with our colourful mollies and finding out about their past and currrent lives. The bits we did get were some of the best of the story I thought. I also wanted more time with Thomas and Gabriel and for their relationship to develop, it did seem a bit rushed.
That fact didn't stop me crying by the end though. The only bit of the story that knocked me sideways was the very end when I found out Thomas and Gabriel weren't going to get their miraculous happy ending. I genuinely thought Thomas had survived and when it turned out he was just part of Gabriel's imagination... reader, I bawled.
Generally speaking I greatly enjoyed it and was entralled and crying till the end.
The Rat is betraying the mollies and getting them brutally killed and it's Gabriel Griffin's job to find out who it is before it's too late.
It was fascinating finding out about the molly houses and the more grimy criminal world of this time. The dank atmosphere and danger were very evocative and the descriptions quite gruesome in places, maybe too much so. The book does a good job at keeping you guessing at The Rat's identity. Some of my more outlandish theories were that is was Thomas True and he had a split personality disorder, or pretended to, like Ed Norton in that film 'Primal Fear'. And his evil side was The Rat. Another theory was that he had an unknown evil identical twin brother who was doing the killing!
After all this speculation, the actual reveal of The Rat turned out to be a bit underwhelming and unconvincing for me.
Other slightly unconvincing aspects:
- Fump being a genius level code writer.
- the whole section with the Blackguard children was a bit odd and out of place. I thought we might be heading into the world of the mystical or supernatural and I couldn't fully picture what was going on.
Generally, I would have preferred if the story was actually a bit slower paced. I would have loved to spend more time with our colourful mollies and finding out about their past and currrent lives. The bits we did get were some of the best of the story I thought. I also wanted more time with Thomas and Gabriel and for their relationship to develop, it did seem a bit rushed.
That fact didn't stop me crying by the end though. The only bit of the story that knocked me sideways was the very end when
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-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
I really did enjoy so much of this book but it felt like it dragged a bit.
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
I read this book for a book club and on the whole I really enjoyed the whodunnit aspect of this book and constantly reconsidering who the rat would be. However, I was really confused with how it all ended and only found out the true meaning from listening to everyone else discuss this book. I thought we also didn’t get enough depth with the characters themselves and it was really hard to feel much sympathy for them. It’s a good book as a mystery but otherwise it’s just quite lacklustre in other areas.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i dislike the way it’s written and idc about british people
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Read this for book club. I was expecting to really like this book, so was surprised when it took me a while to get into it. I found the rhythm of the short chapters too stop/starty and couldn't really get invested in the characters. There was too much violence for me, although I appreciate that is likely accurate to the time which the book was set.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
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:
Complicated
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. The London around you feels like a real, visceral and actually rather unpleasant place.
Our main characters are mostly mollies - gay men that met in secret to enjoy the drinking, socialising and, yes, sex - with the caveat that if they get caught, they will most likely be hung, as at this point in history a conviction for sodomy carries the death penalty.
The issue is that there is a Rat within the Mollies who is feeding information to a rather nasty pair of justices that are taking great delight in killing the mollies. And suspicion quickly falls on the new member of the group - Thomas True, who has recently arrived in London.
The narrative keeps you guessing all the way through - is the “betrayal” in the title one that Thomas is guilty of or is be the one betrayed? The characters are Dickensian in their nastiness, especially Queed who enjoys hideous torture (the bull he uses is a real thing, by the way).
There were a couple of times that the choice of words in the narrative annoyed me - they seemed to be contradicting what was established later, but by the time you get to the end of the book you understand why it was done and it makes sense.
Calling the mollies by their alter-ego names at some points of the book gets a little annoying, because it means you need to learn two names for each character, and occasionally they are referred to as “she” when they are dressed up - but not consistently leading me to wonder why bother in the first place?
There is a strange moment which
There is a strange moment which
But book quite a lot in terms of all in al me. There is a visit to these weird kids in some dodgy l a very en complex that felt like it was from a completely different genre of novel. In the middle of say, Rivers of London, it would’ve made a lot of sense. In the middle of this I just don’t get what it was doing here. It could quite easily be removed totally and not affect the story.
There was also the red herring about the guilty Molly being present at a specific gathering in the book. It actually felt like misdirection for the sake of it.
The violence is very graphic however I felt it helped to illustrate the toxicity of the period and it never quite went too far, although it went close.
So, overall, an enjoyable book that keeps you on your toes until literally the final page, with the caveat that there are some odd bits in there as well.
There was also the red herring about the guilty Molly being present at a specific gathering in the book. It actually felt like misdirection for the sake of it.
The violence is very graphic however I felt it helped to illustrate the toxicity of the period and it never quite went too far, although it went close.
So, overall, an enjoyable book that keeps you on your toes until literally the final page, with the caveat that there are some odd bits in there as well.