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A review by ithilien
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.25
while much of this is a fascinating and compelling premise, it ultimately had a few major issues that really prevented me from enjoying this book.
firstly, the amount of blatant, graphic fatphobia is genuinely disgusting. and i don’t think the resolution of the story is good enough to look past it.
the other issues i had with this book include spoilers.
the twist reveal at the end felt very out of nowhere to me—evelyn’s real identity being revealed didn’t feel like it had any foreshadowing or clues. and the motive for her murdering thomas was… to keep him from telling people she went to the caves? when they never even found the stable boy’s body, and nobody knew he had gone with her? not to mention that the explanation for why she left the stable boy there (she didn’t even kill him) was just… that she could??? it was frustrating that the conclusion made such little sense, especially when the rest of the book was so carefully and cleverly considered. also, felicity killing evelyn at the end didn’t make any sense to me, and seemed to only happen so that anna could escape blackheath. which brings me to my next issue with this book!
i think this book was significantly worsened by its attempts to have an in-universe explanation for why there was a time loop and why aiden kept waking up in other people’s bodies. it was a poorly thought out distraction, and never well enough explored to be satisfying. i think it would have been a much stronger book if the time loop and body swapping had been unexplainable, just a Thing That Was Happening, and the only way to get out of the time loop was to solve the murder.
and i would have liked some of the hosts to be anything besides a white man.
firstly, the amount of blatant, graphic fatphobia is genuinely disgusting. and i don’t think the resolution of the story is good enough to look past it.
the other issues i had with this book include spoilers.
the twist reveal at the end felt very out of nowhere to me—evelyn’s real identity being revealed didn’t feel like it had any foreshadowing or clues. and the motive for her murdering thomas was… to keep him from telling people she went to the caves? when they never even found the stable boy’s body, and nobody knew he had gone with her? not to mention that the explanation for why she left the stable boy there (she didn’t even kill him) was just… that she could??? it was frustrating that the conclusion made such little sense, especially when the rest of the book was so carefully and cleverly considered. also, felicity killing evelyn at the end didn’t make any sense to me, and seemed to only happen so that anna could escape blackheath. which brings me to my next issue with this book!
i think this book was significantly worsened by its attempts to have an in-universe explanation for why there was a time loop and why aiden kept waking up in other people’s bodies. it was a poorly thought out distraction, and never well enough explored to be satisfying. i think it would have been a much stronger book if the time loop and body swapping had been unexplainable, just a Thing That Was Happening, and the only way to get out of the time loop was to solve the murder.
and i would have liked some of the hosts to be anything besides a white man.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
truly i have never read a book with such horrific levels of fatphobia. and it wasn’t something that an evil character said, it was just part of the narration. over and over again.