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dazed_and_distracted's review against another edition
2 stars out of 5 from what I have seen. I was very intrigued by the cover, the good reviews and the concept. I had some reservations about playing around in such an absurd manner with the very real tragedy of these very real people, but I was willing to let it slide if the overall reading experience made up for it. Unfortunately it did not. The plot was very slow and the tone (although the humor was spot on for me for about 90% of the time) did not allow me to get close to them, to get invested in what they were thinking and feeling about their situation. Either it should have been more absurd from the start (I hear it gets more so in the later half) or more realistic throughout. Gifford (sorry, I meant G. :) ) was uninteresting even though his horse-condition was advertised as being part of the main intrigue (it was brushed aside surprisingly quickly by Jane). Jane herself was bland and somewhat unlikable. Her love of reading was overdone. It was rarely funny and tiring after a few mentions. Sort of a "we have Belle at home" kind of character. Although I may be biased here, because one of my least favourite tropes when it comes to modern heroines is when the author tries to supplement the lack of characterization by insisting on their love of reading. It's no longer original and seems to me more like an attempt to appeal to the reading community, than actual character building. She also came off as quite shallow: early on there are often repeated jokes about other characters appearances and her being picky about her future husbands looks (the dreaded trait in question is a big nose - oh my!) when one of the few things we get to learn about Jane is that she is often bullied for her appearance (which is conventionally beautiful by the way). Edward was the most interesting and likable of the three leads and I kind of wish this story was more centered around his life (partly because I found the flashbacks to Henry VIII to be the most clever historical humor). However, he too had a recurring joke that started to make me uncomfortable: Edward has a dog called Petunia (Pet for short) who also turns out to be a shapeshifter. A girl, who is I think about the same age as Edward. And there is some odd sexual tension with this girl who is basically naked around him all of the time, whom he calls Pet and who lives as his dog... It's all taken for laughs, nothing serious, but this was a joke that just didn't land for me. Thankfully she doesn't end up being his love interest as I feared. I haven't read that much, so maybe some of the problems I listed are rectified later. I am still interested in reading other books from this series, because clearly there is talent here, but I think I will skip the other one set in the edian-verse.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Body shaming, and Death
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