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A review by noranne
A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas
4.0
I really enjoyed this one--more than I expected to, to be honest, given the proliferation of Sherlock Holmes adaptions and the possibly-gimmicky genderbending.
It actually worked really well! The novel is decidedly feminist without being preachy or unrealistic. Omg the realism when one character, who is a perfectly kind and good man, reacts to a small amount of feminist sentiment on the part of his wife by immediately lurching to self-pity and how it affects him!
I found myself trying to recall the original Study in Scarlet (which I've read twice, though not recently) and fitting it into this mystery, but this is not the same book and it's not the same case, either. This case worked pretty well, I was able to deduce some things myself but not everything. In fact, I'm not sure it would have been possible to deduce everything, but that's okay, because I'm not really the solve-it-yourself kind of reader.
My biggest complaint about the book was the pacing and the split between the story of Charlotte and the story of the mystery. Not necessarily the overall amount of time spent on each, but I never felt like the balance with the switching was right. Especially because, due to Charlotte's unfortunate case of womanhood, she can't do any investigating herself, so a lot of the book feels like the Adventures of Inspector Treadles. I also disliked in the ending that:
As far as the audiobook, the narrator was excellent and nimbly handled a load of different accents.
I'll definitely be continuing on with the series.
It actually worked really well! The novel is decidedly feminist without being preachy or unrealistic. Omg the realism when one character, who is a perfectly kind and good man, reacts to a small amount of feminist sentiment on the part of his wife by immediately lurching to self-pity and how it affects him!
I found myself trying to recall the original Study in Scarlet (which I've read twice, though not recently) and fitting it into this mystery, but this is not the same book and it's not the same case, either. This case worked pretty well, I was able to deduce some things myself but not everything. In fact, I'm not sure it would have been possible to deduce everything, but that's okay, because I'm not really the solve-it-yourself kind of reader.
My biggest complaint about the book was the pacing and the split between the story of Charlotte and the story of the mystery. Not necessarily the overall amount of time spent on each, but I never felt like the balance with the switching was right. Especially because, due to Charlotte's unfortunate case of womanhood, she can't do any investigating herself, so a lot of the book feels like the Adventures of Inspector Treadles. I also disliked in the ending that:
Spoiler
Just as soon as Charlotte cracks the case, she gets a letter detailing literally the entire solution from the perpetrator. It made it all seem rather pointless and was too weirdly tidy.As far as the audiobook, the narrator was excellent and nimbly handled a load of different accents.
I'll definitely be continuing on with the series.