Reviews

i liked it well enough but the ending felt so abrupt compared to the rest of the book???? like i get what the point was but i didn't necessarily like that. i think regardless this book would have been 3 stars for me. parts of it were interesting but other than that i was kind of bored :/

unfortunately now that i'm writing this review it's been some time between when i read this and now and i kind of barely remember what happened, which isn't a good sign. i remember being incredibly bored for the majority of the book. i also remember thinking that i was kind of annoyed by one of the main characters (dorothea) a lot but that i also didn't necessarily find ruth's point of view compelling either.

i really wanted to like this book. i thought the concept was such a cool idea, but i just think that the execution was poor. i realize that in order to execute this story at all, there needed to be 2 points of view, but when 1 of the pov's is an annoying character and the other is boring as hell, then it's not exactly exciting. despite everything that happened to ruth and how crazy her life was, it was just not written in an exciting way???? i get that she was resigned to her fate, but something was missing with her characterization and the way it was written. dorothea was a frustrating character. she always thought she was right, which of course comes from her incredibly privileged upbringing from being in the higher class.

Spoiler

we also see her change her mind about her beliefs at the end of the book, which you knew was going to happen from the beginning, but then the whole thing where she murdered her dad as a test to see if ruth really had her power. idkkkkk it was just so rushed in my opinion.

the big thing that worked for me with this novel was the setting. it was well written and you felt like you were dropped right in the middle of victorian england. i believe that this novel was well researched in order to make the novel feel incredibly realistic and i appreciate that greatly.

missgrayreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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