A review by buildingtaste
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

From the first chapter, I always felt like this book was not quite telling me everything I needed to know. Since the setting is an alternate England, I would have expected more direct exposition about the things that make it meaningfully different, and also for these differences to have an impact on the story. As it was, we were soon locked in a country house, fundamentally indistinguishable from an English house (except of course for

the haunted basement

. Though having never stayed in an English country house I guess I can't be sure). Simply setting this novel in a more familiar country, even if in a fictional town or county, would have made this experience much more grounded and improved the contrast of familiar and unfamiliar once things got really weird.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Murder, Pregnancy, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Self harm, Torture, Death, Abandonment, Mental illness, Animal death, Confinement, Death of parent, and Violence

Moderate: Medical content

Minor: Sexual content and Forced institutionalization

As a gothic horror novel, Jane Lawrence comes in fast with explicit gore. Elements of the magic system involve having something affecting a person's organs/moving inside their body, which

the protagonist

describes experiencing in detail.