Scan barcode
A review by monasterymonochrome
Nettleblack by Nat Reeve
4.0
This was pretty fun. Historical fiction is always kind of hit or miss with me, but once I settled into the setting and the dense writing style, I got very invested in the story. Of course, it also doesn't hurt that this was probably one of the queerest works of historical fiction I've ever read, and I appreciated that it focused mostly on the joys of queer romance and identity rather than being entirely about the torture of keeping one's "clandestine loves" and "forbidden vices" in the shadows, and it was able to achieve this without coming across as anachronistic or unrealistic. This book has a really strong and unique cast of characters, and I adored so many of them - Septimus, Lorrie, Nick, Pip, Rosamund. They all had their own little dramas going on throughout which prevented them from fading into the background, and most of these side stories very cleverly ended up weaving into the main plot, which made for some fun twists and unexpected connections.
I will say that this took about 100 pages to fully grab me, and I think that was mostly because I struggled with Henry as the primary narrator at first. I thought in the beginning her more irritating quirks (using fruits as curse words, an obsession with the word "quite," never being able to finish a complete sentence) were way too overdone. Like, I'm hopelessly socially awkward and perpetually anxious, too, but even I was starting to get fed up with how totally inept she seemed to be. But after she got to the Division, between her slowly evolving sense of self and the presence of additional characters to balance her out, she started growing on me. By the end, I liked her a lot more and was definitely rooting for her happy ending. The book finished in an open-ended enough way that I could easily envision an entire series documenting the Division's various adventures unfolding, and I definitely wouldn't mind spending more time in this world with these characters. That being said, it's also satisfying enough to work perfectly well as a standalone.
I will say that this took about 100 pages to fully grab me, and I think that was mostly because I struggled with Henry as the primary narrator at first. I thought in the beginning her more irritating quirks (using fruits as curse words, an obsession with the word "quite," never being able to finish a complete sentence) were way too overdone. Like, I'm hopelessly socially awkward and perpetually anxious, too, but even I was starting to get fed up with how totally inept she seemed to be. But after she got to the Division, between her slowly evolving sense of self and the presence of additional characters to balance her out, she started growing on me. By the end, I liked her a lot more and was definitely rooting for her happy ending. The book finished in an open-ended enough way that I could easily envision an entire series documenting the Division's various adventures unfolding, and I definitely wouldn't mind spending more time in this world with these characters. That being said, it's also satisfying enough to work perfectly well as a standalone.