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A review by dreaminthepages
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
3.0
3.5 out of 5 stars - I enjoyed the concept of this story but the execution was sloppy!
Ok where to start. Criticisms first I suppose.
There was a very strong feminist theme in this book which I am all for however it came off a little too strong. There seemed to be this huge hatred towards 98% of men festering in this book and the solution was outright to harm them, which i'm sure in those days was the only way out at times. Maybe men of the 1700s were just all slimeballs so they deserved it but it would have been nice to see more of the good male characters, Alf and Tom Pepper.
The Caroline chapters.....oh gosh where do I begin! A lot of them were very boring, draggy and unnecessarily repetitive and way too convenient. A lot of the time many things were repeated in different ways which wasn't needed - there was a sense of over-explanation by the author which was frustrating because as a reader all this stuff was already known to us. The only Caroline chapter I seemed to enjoy was when James ingested the eucalyptus oil as there was some excitement and thrill!
Caroline as a character was very boring, whiny and had no development. She was supposed to be a history grad yet a lot of solutions were spoonfed to her thanks to Alf and Gaynor. The solutions were just too convenient and there was little suspense or struggle. She made the research all about her own personal life and kept linking the two together when really they were independent of each other. I also hated the end when she threw the vial back into the Thames. Sure you don't have to share that or Eliza's story with anyone but this was the startpoint to your new life chapter and you just throw it away like that?! The whole story revolved around that vial, sort of like when a school teacher gives you an object and you have to create a whole story incorporating the object in.
This may seem petty, but the way magic was spelt (magick) really irked me and I thought it was unnecessary.
I enjoyed the Nella and Eliza chapters and really enjoyed their sweet relationship like mother and daughter, apothecary and apprentice. Their story was of better quality and I always looked forward to their chapters more. Honestly this story would have been fine without the modern time period and if it was just set in the 1700s with more plot and characters.
Being a pharmacist, it was interesting to read and I suppose learn about a lot of these traditional medieval uses of herbal remedies as herbal medicine is not so widely practiced these days due to the lack of evidence and also toxicity potentials. I feel like these could have featured more in the story maybe we could have learnt about more cases.
Also I appreciate the authors generosity in sharing some recipes at the end of the book, but they literally had no context whatsoever. Maybe for example, if those rosemary cookies had actually featured in the story, it would have made sense but it just seemed out of place
Overall I appreciate that this was the authors debut novel and enjoyed the concept of it but felt like the author was trying too much which disrupted the flow of the story. Some of the chapters felt disconnected from each other and so much more could have been done with this story.
Spoiler
Ok where to start. Criticisms first I suppose.
There was a very strong feminist theme in this book which I am all for however it came off a little too strong. There seemed to be this huge hatred towards 98% of men festering in this book and the solution was outright to harm them, which i'm sure in those days was the only way out at times. Maybe men of the 1700s were just all slimeballs so they deserved it but it would have been nice to see more of the good male characters, Alf and Tom Pepper.
The Caroline chapters.....oh gosh where do I begin! A lot of them were very boring, draggy and unnecessarily repetitive and way too convenient. A lot of the time many things were repeated in different ways which wasn't needed - there was a sense of over-explanation by the author which was frustrating because as a reader all this stuff was already known to us. The only Caroline chapter I seemed to enjoy was when James ingested the eucalyptus oil as there was some excitement and thrill!
Caroline as a character was very boring, whiny and had no development. She was supposed to be a history grad yet a lot of solutions were spoonfed to her thanks to Alf and Gaynor. The solutions were just too convenient and there was little suspense or struggle. She made the research all about her own personal life and kept linking the two together when really they were independent of each other. I also hated the end when she threw the vial back into the Thames. Sure you don't have to share that or Eliza's story with anyone but this was the startpoint to your new life chapter and you just throw it away like that?! The whole story revolved around that vial, sort of like when a school teacher gives you an object and you have to create a whole story incorporating the object in.
This may seem petty, but the way magic was spelt (magick) really irked me and I thought it was unnecessary.
I enjoyed the Nella and Eliza chapters and really enjoyed their sweet relationship like mother and daughter, apothecary and apprentice. Their story was of better quality and I always looked forward to their chapters more. Honestly this story would have been fine without the modern time period and if it was just set in the 1700s with more plot and characters.
Being a pharmacist, it was interesting to read and I suppose learn about a lot of these traditional medieval uses of herbal remedies as herbal medicine is not so widely practiced these days due to the lack of evidence and also toxicity potentials. I feel like these could have featured more in the story maybe we could have learnt about more cases.
Also I appreciate the authors generosity in sharing some recipes at the end of the book, but they literally had no context whatsoever. Maybe for example, if those rosemary cookies had actually featured in the story, it would have made sense but it just seemed out of place
Overall I appreciate that this was the authors debut novel and enjoyed the concept of it but felt like the author was trying too much which disrupted the flow of the story. Some of the chapters felt disconnected from each other and so much more could have been done with this story.