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A review by aromarrie
Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz
dark
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
4.25
a personal opinion of mine would’ve been that this book could’ve been better if the author explored hazel & jack’s relationship to be more a friendship or even brother/sister relationship than anything else, because the romance? i felt nothing for. i see the vision for their dynamic with hazel wanting to become a physician while jack sells the bodies of those who are long dead; both have a connection to death and there’s even an interesting conversation they have that surrounds that theme but ultimately, i didn’t see much depth in their relationship to make sense of jack eventually calling her “my love” and the two just generally becoming so attached to each other in later parts of the book; it all just felt very shallow, personally.
the reason why i mention all this is just because it’ll forever aggravate me how underdeveloped their romance was when the rest of the book was very well-done.
the writing itself was absolutely solid, all the medical content (which gets pretty graphic, mind you) and learning a lot about how physicians worked in the 19th century with the knowledge that they had at the time was surprisingly interesting (and had way more depth). seeing all that knowledge be applied to hazel, who was a prospective physician and applied herself readily to her studies, made me love her perspective very much, because it felt very inspiring to know how determined she was to reach her goal, as impossible as the other male characters in this book deem it out to be. seeing how she came to learn the hands-on part of being a physician was what made this book stand out to me because it felt so unconventional and yet in this time period, it couldn’t have been any more common than it was for people like jack who existed and dug up dead bodies to sell for money.
jack himself, i feel like there could’ve been so much more explored regarding his career as a “resurrection man” as the little we did learn, there was a compelling aspect to it and yet for it to feel buried underneath hazel’s own pov, it left this imbalance in perspectives in a dual pov novel. learning about the many people who cross this line between living & dead in order for them themselves to survive, including jack, was a really grave topic to explore but also thrilling, because it required a lot of skill and even suspense for those who sneak into the graveyards at night, having silently observed the mourned during the day to see who’s the best candidate to sell off.
as i mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of medical content in this book, and with that, there was a lot more to learn about the Roman fever, an illness which in this book, plagued the city of Edinburgh in 1815 as it killed thousands, both poor and noble alike. the great level of description that this author took to explore the severity of this illness at this date and time + the people who suffer from it but are also learning, it added a tension to this story that among everything else, made my reading experience a little more invigorating.
again, i could’ve done without the romance, but i really enjoyed the writing and the setting of this story as a whole, and the direction that this author went towards the end was certainly memorable as i was able to predict some of it, but then ultimately felt stunned at the leftover majority that i couldn’t have seen coming. this cover is absolutely beautiful, and if there’s ever a greater love story, it is not between hazel & jack, but rather between the notion of life & death, the people who meet their end & those who take advantage of it. that is all.
the reason why i mention all this is just because it’ll forever aggravate me how underdeveloped their romance was when the rest of the book was very well-done.
the writing itself was absolutely solid, all the medical content (which gets pretty graphic, mind you) and learning a lot about how physicians worked in the 19th century with the knowledge that they had at the time was surprisingly interesting (and had way more depth). seeing all that knowledge be applied to hazel, who was a prospective physician and applied herself readily to her studies, made me love her perspective very much, because it felt very inspiring to know how determined she was to reach her goal, as impossible as the other male characters in this book deem it out to be. seeing how she came to learn the hands-on part of being a physician was what made this book stand out to me because it felt so unconventional and yet in this time period, it couldn’t have been any more common than it was for people like jack who existed and dug up dead bodies to sell for money.
jack himself, i feel like there could’ve been so much more explored regarding his career as a “resurrection man” as the little we did learn, there was a compelling aspect to it and yet for it to feel buried underneath hazel’s own pov, it left this imbalance in perspectives in a dual pov novel. learning about the many people who cross this line between living & dead in order for them themselves to survive, including jack, was a really grave topic to explore but also thrilling, because it required a lot of skill and even suspense for those who sneak into the graveyards at night, having silently observed the mourned during the day to see who’s the best candidate to sell off.
as i mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of medical content in this book, and with that, there was a lot more to learn about the Roman fever, an illness which in this book, plagued the city of Edinburgh in 1815 as it killed thousands, both poor and noble alike. the great level of description that this author took to explore the severity of this illness at this date and time + the people who suffer from it but are also learning, it added a tension to this story that among everything else, made my reading experience a little more invigorating.
again, i could’ve done without the romance, but i really enjoyed the writing and the setting of this story as a whole, and the direction that this author went towards the end was certainly memorable as i was able to predict some of it, but then ultimately felt stunned at the leftover majority that i couldn’t have seen coming. this cover is absolutely beautiful, and if there’s ever a greater love story, it is not between hazel & jack, but rather between the notion of life & death, the people who meet their end & those who take advantage of it. that is all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content and Blood
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Death, and Kidnapping
Minor: Grief and Animal death