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A review by xandra_lyn
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Really great read, I couldn't put it down!! I definitely enjoyed the Eliza/Nella storylines better than Caroline's. In fact, Caroline bothered me a lot. I liked her ending, but she didn't act like a real woman...to the point I actually checked to see if the author was actually a man (for examples, see spoiler). I also wish the ending had been a little clearer on what happened to Eliza/Nella.
Examples of Caroline not acting like a real woman:
1. Planning her 10 year anniversary trip when her period is due. Like, women know these things...they'd plan NOT to be on their period then. Also, she then eluded to wanting to make a baby on the honeymoon, and even IF a woman wanted to have sex on her period, she definitely wouldn't be making a baby. That's not how women's bodies work. I'm wondering if she wasn't expecting her period at first and then the author changed it...but that should have caught that in editing.
2. Not taking a pregnancy test. I get the author wanted to build suspense, but a normal woman would just take it. even if it was negative, the author could still have built suspense with a late period, because until you get the period or get a positive test, there IS a slight chance you might be pregnant. (For those who don't know, positive tests are like 100% accurate, but negatives have some wiggle room).
3. Keeping Eliza a secret at the end. No one - especially woman, who are so often invisible - deserves to be erased from history. As a woman AND a historian, I would never have kept a story of an interesting woman to myself. I don't think any woman would.
Examples of Caroline not acting like a real woman:
1. Planning her 10 year anniversary trip when her period is due. Like, women know these things...they'd plan NOT to be on their period then. Also, she then eluded to wanting to make a baby on the honeymoon, and even IF a woman wanted to have sex on her period, she definitely wouldn't be making a baby. That's not how women's bodies work. I'm wondering if she wasn't expecting her period at first and then the author changed it...but that should have caught that in editing.
2. Not taking a pregnancy test. I get the author wanted to build suspense, but a normal woman would just take it. even if it was negative, the author could still have built suspense with a late period, because until you get the period or get a positive test, there IS a slight chance you might be pregnant. (For those who don't know, positive tests are like 100% accurate, but negatives have some wiggle room).
3. Keeping Eliza a secret at the end. No one - especially woman, who are so often invisible - deserves to be erased from history. As a woman AND a historian, I would never have kept a story of an interesting woman to myself. I don't think any woman would.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse
Moderate: Body horror and Blood
Minor: Pedophilia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, and Misogyny
Emotional abuse: Caroline's husband
Blood: a character struggles with an illness and spits clots of blood
Pedophilia: Eliza's employer comes into her (she's 12) and begins to touch her stomach, legs, and thighs before a commotion interrupts him. It doesn't seem he raped her, but it's implied he did so with a previous maid. As awful and scarring as this would be, it was not detailed in graphic ways and so I put it low on the list.
Medical trauma/content: it's about poison, so there's a fair amount of medical issues that happen
Miscarriage: memory of a character, not graphic.
*Not on other users' reviews: idk why people put body horror. Other than possibly the effects of the poisons, but it's not graphic