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Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss
7 reviews
bzliz's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.25
The best I can say is that this sure is a book I listened to. It’s like Disney’s Descendants meets classic monster stories and also Sherlock Holmes is there. The lead character is Mary Jekyll. She ends up bringing together her maybe-half-sister Diana Hyde, a poisonous woman, a woman developed from a puma, a lady Frankenstein, her housekeeper and her former maid to form a club living together and investigating a secret society of men who do inhumane experiments on women.
The characters all get lost because of the attempt to create an ensemble cast and none are interesting enough on their own to warrant undivided attention. There are several asides and interjections within the story from the characters themselves which was charming at first but it quickly became tedious. At least three were Diana asserting that the author can accurately capture her voice when she wants to. Even with this crew of women brought together, they still need Sherlock Holmes to help them investigate and lend them credibility because they are women living in a deeply misogynistic world. On top of that, the villains were so cartoonish that they helpfully spew exposition for the benefit of readers in a way that nobody has ever talked or ever will talk.
I cannot subject myself to the next book no matter how much I need something to listen to while I clean my house. It’s 700 pages long and this entire book felt like a preamble to explain how these women met and I can’t bear to recount it all over again.
The characters all get lost because of the attempt to create an ensemble cast and none are interesting enough on their own to warrant undivided attention. There are several asides and interjections within the story from the characters themselves which was charming at first but it quickly became tedious. At least three were Diana asserting that the author can accurately capture her voice when she wants to. Even with this crew of women brought together, they still need Sherlock Holmes to help them investigate and lend them credibility because they are women living in a deeply misogynistic world. On top of that, the villains were so cartoonish that they helpfully spew exposition for the benefit of readers in a way that nobody has ever talked or ever will talk.
I cannot subject myself to the next book no matter how much I need something to listen to while I clean my house. It’s 700 pages long and this entire book felt like a preamble to explain how these women met and I can’t bear to recount it all over again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma
Moderate: Sexism and Misogyny
Minor: Sexual assault
I’ve tagged sexual assault specifically for a mention of Justinefroyobaggns's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Stalking, Medical content, Adult/minor relationship, Torture, Death, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Moderate: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, and Animal cruelty
yavanna95's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Enthralling from start to finish!!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical trauma
charlottejones952's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
This isn’t a book I thought I’d ever pick up but I’ve gotten really into the spooky season this year and though this would be the right level of creepy for me (I get scared easily!).
Drawing on classic characters of Victorian horror such as Jekyll and Hyde, Dr Moreau and Frankenstein’s monster, Theodora Goss creates a band of monstrous women that, joined by Sherlock and Watson, solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders.
I listened to this book mostly in one day and loved the experience. The characters are flawed but lovable and their relationships are growing in strength. The mystery wasn’t too difficult to solve in my opinion given that you know who these characters are, however I think that the way in which it was unravelled kept me interested throughout.
I’m looking forward to following these characters on their future adventures, particularly now that the whole series is published.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Body horror
Moderate: Abandonment, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Sexism, Medical trauma, Grief, Death of parent, and Blood
meagangrace's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Murder
hward's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Suicide, Mental illness, and Medical trauma
typedtruths's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
quick thoughts:
the moment riley marie talked about this book in her vlog, i knew it was going to be a new favourite of mine too.
PROS
• fun. i read this, mostly, during my state's first proper lockdown and it was a breath of fresh air.
• found family. i sound like a broken record at this point but found family is my favourite trope. there's nothing quite like a ragtag group of misfits finding each other and making a home where they can all be their unabashed selves.
• the writing style. the book itself is written like the girls are writing an account of their adventures. catherine, a novelist, is in charge but the other characters write in the margins & interrupt when they think catherine is romanticising a certain moment or interject to say, 'no, i wasn't *scared* then, i don't get scared' or 'i was not blushing! the sun had gotten to my cheeks'. it adds this whole other layer to the story, and the banter? top notch.
• the whole cast. it is rare that i don't have a favourite narrator in a book with multiple perspectives, but the entire cast was delightful. i loved the whole crew, down to charlie & mrs poole.
• girl fighting their abusive fathers. a squad of women that society has snubbed overcoming systemic obstacles to band together and save other women from their abusive fathers? hell yeah.
• sherlock. i'm basic. i love me a sherlock retelling 🤷
CONS
• the pacing. it was a tiny bit on the dense side. i know a lot of historical fiction favour a slower pace (which i actually like), but it did stagnate a little in the middle.
• the "time-period appropriate" -ism. again, i know historical fiction tends to be as accurate to the era as possible, but i can't deny it is extremely difficult to read blatant ableism, racism & misogyny regardless. there is a fair amount of ableism and sex worker shaming as well as two downright racist sentences (as quoted below) which easily could have been edited out.
the racist comments on pages 199 & 347 respectively (in my edition):
the moment riley marie talked about this book in her vlog, i knew it was going to be a new favourite of mine too.
PROS
• fun. i read this, mostly, during my state's first proper lockdown and it was a breath of fresh air.
• found family. i sound like a broken record at this point but found family is my favourite trope. there's nothing quite like a ragtag group of misfits finding each other and making a home where they can all be their unabashed selves.
• the writing style. the book itself is written like the girls are writing an account of their adventures. catherine, a novelist, is in charge but the other characters write in the margins & interrupt when they think catherine is romanticising a certain moment or interject to say, 'no, i wasn't *scared* then, i don't get scared' or 'i was not blushing! the sun had gotten to my cheeks'. it adds this whole other layer to the story, and the banter? top notch.
• the whole cast. it is rare that i don't have a favourite narrator in a book with multiple perspectives, but the entire cast was delightful. i loved the whole crew, down to charlie & mrs poole.
• girl fighting their abusive fathers. a squad of women that society has snubbed overcoming systemic obstacles to band together and save other women from their abusive fathers? hell yeah.
• sherlock. i'm basic. i love me a sherlock retelling 🤷
CONS
• the pacing. it was a tiny bit on the dense side. i know a lot of historical fiction favour a slower pace (which i actually like), but it did stagnate a little in the middle.
• the "time-period appropriate" -ism. again, i know historical fiction tends to be as accurate to the era as possible, but i can't deny it is extremely difficult to read blatant ableism, racism & misogyny regardless. there is a fair amount of ableism and sex worker shaming as well as two downright racist sentences (as quoted below) which easily could have been edited out.
the racist comments on pages 199 & 347 respectively (in my edition):
"To those readers who are not familiar with London, who may be reading this in the wilds of America, where we hear there are bears and savages, or in the wilds of Australia, where there are also savages but no bears (unless, adds Justine, they are marsupial bears), the problem that now presented itself to Catherine and Diana was as follows."
and
"And he was excited: he had finally decided that we would go to Africa. With our superior strength, we could traverse jungles and desert that made the interior of the continent dangerous for white men. We would see what no European had ever seen. Surely the rude savages would worship us as gods."
➸ Trigger warnings for
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Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Misogyny, and Violence
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Racism
misogyny, ableism & ableist language, sex worker shaming & slurs, underage sex work recounted, domestic abuse mentioned, psychiatric hospitalisation, the suicide of a parent mentioned, suicide & suicidal ideation mentioned, alcohol consumption, pregnancy & teen pregnancy mentioned, graphic dead body & body parts, blood & gore depiction, physical injuries & illness, nonconsensual surgery mentioned, dismemberment and decapitation discussed, nonconsensual medical experimentation (central theme), death of father & mother, death of an infant recounted, murder & attempted murder (multiple on-page & recounted), strangulation, poisoning, kidnapping & confinement, animal experimentation (off-page), animal death, and poverty themes
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