A review by nancyboy
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

3.0

3 to 3.5 stars

I understand why someone hate this book and some love it. Pretty much this is pride and prejudice with magic. I don’t get my wrong I love Pride and Prejudice, it’s one of my favourites and I literally re-watched the bbc miniseries this morning! So I was pretty excited to read this book, and overall I did quite enjoy it.

What I did really like about Shades of Milk and Honey was the writing Kowal wonderfully captures Jane Austen style of writing, but still added her own personality to it. I also loved the magic, glamour, and how it played a big part of the characters lives. I did overall like the characters, but at times I think Kowal tried to mirror the characters of pride and prejudice a bit too much, when they are really very different people.

My main problem with Shades of Milk and Honey is that romance is way too underdeveloped and so the ending, even though predictable, kinda of comes out of no where.

I would say that the strongest parts of the novel are when the plot lines, events and characters deviate from pride and prejudice. I wish there was just a bit more originality in the novel, and I didn’t have to compare it heavily to pride and prejudice. Some people have also compared to to Jane Eyre, but I haven’t read Jane Eyre so I can’t speak on that front.

But in saying all that there is a lot to like in Shades of Milk and Honey, if the novel does interest you I would say you should give it a shot, it only took me a few hours to read. And I will definitely be continuing on with the series and definitely reading more of Kowal’s novels.