Reviews - The Death of Jane Lawrence

3.27k reviews for:

The Death of Jane Lawrence

Caitlin Starling

3.29 AVERAGE

milojean_reads's review against another edition

4.5

dark mysterious reflective tense fast-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

battysbooks's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Content Warnings

callieistired's review against another edition

4.0

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

lost_highway88's review against another edition

2.0

dark mysterious 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: Yes

onechrispy's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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: Yes

ixris's review against another edition

2.75

dark tense 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: Yes

I started a more in depth review and then clicked away from it like a goof.

This book suffers from a lack of stable world building to anchor us in reality such that when things go downhill into bananapantsland, what results is just a lot of questions and heavy sighs of "Ok fine."

The "romance" is pretty instalove. It's trying to be an arranged marriage but the two of them cannot stop making out. There is no on-page sex, but it happens between the lines of narration. I wouldn't care either way, but the way the narration has to bring up "oh that's the bed we had sex in, it was sooooo hot" every time Jane walks in a room is so infuriating and lurid. It makes me feel more a voyeur than if I actually read a spicy romance.

Its maybe more horrormance than actual horror because the characters with significant bearing on the plot besides Jane and Augustine are .... pretty much no one. At one point Jane tends to a patient she went to school with and just doesn't bother having any conversation with her. Almost all of Jane's conversations are with men, and the few women she does talk with are in her employ. The Ruzkan doctor is the only secondary character who feels real, and turns out the acknowledgements say she was the writers role play character for a number of years.

The word "blood" is used enough times to feel farcical.

The names of the countries at war are Great Breltain and Ruzka.

The setting feels at once 1850 and 1945, but there are no cars, trains, airplanes, or telegraphs, and so everything must be done by horse. And I, a weirdo who loves modern warfare and technology, really found myself frowning bc that's almost a hundred years, and that I cannot firmly anchor myself in the setting enough to feel the buzz of technological change that partially fed the rise of the gothic really makes it feel like the setting is frosting.

I almost wish it had been slightly modernized. There could have been a story here set in mid century with a woman trying to build a life of her own and swallowed up by the pressures to be both housewife and successful, only to have to fight against the evils of the decades preceding.

But then you wouldn't get that slick hot topic aesthetic on the cover.

Content Warnings