Scan barcode
A review by celsius273
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy
4.0
Quick, fun, but definitely not a throwaway read! The Apothecary hits all of my reading and real life interests: chemistry, Latin, teenage sleuthing, and general badassery balanced with entertaining characters. Really, quite nice.
Jane (Janie) is perfectly content with her life in LA, but it’s 1952 and McCarthyism is in full effect. Her parents are being monitered for communist sentiments and in order to get away from the constant scrutiny, they decide to move to London - without discussing with Janie first. She’s 14 years old, just getting into high school and this news obviously distresses her. This is the first point of this book that I quite enjoyed: how the new school experience was convincingly portrayed. She hates everything at first: the awful uniform, the lack of butter, learning Latin and more ofc, but then she befriends Benjamin Burrows, the son of the apothecary, and an aspiring spy.
Benjamin hates everything about becoming an apothecary He thinks it’s boring, useless, and - being a teenager - is also annoyed that he is following his father into the business. Turns out though, that the life of an apothecary isn’t as drab as he thinks of it and he and Janie are quickly thrown into a whirlwind of revelations when they find his father conversing with Soviet immigrants, and then mysteriously disappearing. The book then dives straight into the secret world of alchemy, and suddenly Benjamin isn’t so turned off by the prospect of becoming and apothecary! See it turns out there’s this magical alchemy book that Benjamin’s father has and is coveted by a lot of nasty people. It’s up to Benjamin, Janie, and their allies to keep it safe from Soviets, ex-Nazis, anyone who would want to use it for harm.
See, doesn’t it sound so fun already? I love it when alchemy is the basis of magic in a book like in bloodlines - and my go to harry potter class is obviously potions! And this book is packed with fun stuff. There are invisibility baths that require melting down an ounce of gold, elixirs that turn people into birds or salt, distillations that force anyone who inhales the vapors to state only the truth, and way way more. There are magical plants, moon cycle timed rituals, but also magic that is woven in with chemistry, biology, and all sorts of other sciences. Love love love this part of the book!
Janie and Benjamin end up teaming with another boy, Pip who is a pickpocket but has a heart of gold, when they are all forced to turn into birds to escape a deranged Latin teacher chasing them down at juvie. They also meet up with Jin Lo, a chinese chemist who has been working with Benjamin’s father, and is herself also an accomplished alchemist producing copious amounts of orange smoke from a vial in order to escape from captivity and in general helping the children with their alchemical projects. She was my favorite character of the whole book probably. A no nonsense attitude and dry humor combined with general amazingness - what’s not to admire!
Around the half-way point, I remember being really frustrated with Janie - hence the four stars - but it isn’t really memorable. On the whole, this book was jam packed with stuff, really really fast paced and I never once got bored. The characters are awesome, the concept fascinating, and the plot moving. The one part I’m apparently missing out on are the illustrations. Based on how nicely done the cover is, I’m not really sure how much this would have affected my reading, but the audiobook was fantastic anyways. Now if only I could find the second book on overdrive...
Jane (Janie) is perfectly content with her life in LA, but it’s 1952 and McCarthyism is in full effect. Her parents are being monitered for communist sentiments and in order to get away from the constant scrutiny, they decide to move to London - without discussing with Janie first. She’s 14 years old, just getting into high school and this news obviously distresses her. This is the first point of this book that I quite enjoyed: how the new school experience was convincingly portrayed. She hates everything at first: the awful uniform, the lack of butter, learning Latin and more ofc, but then she befriends Benjamin Burrows, the son of the apothecary, and an aspiring spy.
Benjamin hates everything about becoming an apothecary He thinks it’s boring, useless, and - being a teenager - is also annoyed that he is following his father into the business. Turns out though, that the life of an apothecary isn’t as drab as he thinks of it and he and Janie are quickly thrown into a whirlwind of revelations when they find his father conversing with Soviet immigrants, and then mysteriously disappearing. The book then dives straight into the secret world of alchemy, and suddenly Benjamin isn’t so turned off by the prospect of becoming and apothecary! See it turns out there’s this magical alchemy book that Benjamin’s father has and is coveted by a lot of nasty people. It’s up to Benjamin, Janie, and their allies to keep it safe from Soviets, ex-Nazis, anyone who would want to use it for harm.
See, doesn’t it sound so fun already? I love it when alchemy is the basis of magic in a book like in bloodlines - and my go to harry potter class is obviously potions! And this book is packed with fun stuff. There are invisibility baths that require melting down an ounce of gold, elixirs that turn people into birds or salt, distillations that force anyone who inhales the vapors to state only the truth, and way way more. There are magical plants, moon cycle timed rituals, but also magic that is woven in with chemistry, biology, and all sorts of other sciences. Love love love this part of the book!
Janie and Benjamin end up teaming with another boy, Pip who is a pickpocket but has a heart of gold, when they are all forced to turn into birds to escape a deranged Latin teacher chasing them down at juvie. They also meet up with Jin Lo, a chinese chemist who has been working with Benjamin’s father, and is herself also an accomplished alchemist producing copious amounts of orange smoke from a vial in order to escape from captivity and in general helping the children with their alchemical projects. She was my favorite character of the whole book probably. A no nonsense attitude and dry humor combined with general amazingness - what’s not to admire!
Around the half-way point, I remember being really frustrated with Janie - hence the four stars - but it isn’t really memorable. On the whole, this book was jam packed with stuff, really really fast paced and I never once got bored. The characters are awesome, the concept fascinating, and the plot moving. The one part I’m apparently missing out on are the illustrations. Based on how nicely done the cover is, I’m not really sure how much this would have affected my reading, but the audiobook was fantastic anyways. Now if only I could find the second book on overdrive...