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A review by olivialandryxo
Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz
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? No
3.0
This wasn’t a bad book, there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, but good grief, I was bored out of my skull. Also, the fact that I read and fell in love with the Stalking Jack the Ripper series earlier this year and thus went into this book expecting something similar was my downfall. I kept comparing Hazel to Audrey Rose, Jack to Thomas, [whatever the hell Hazel and Jack’s ship name is] to Cressworth, and every time, I was disappointed. SJTR is superior in every way. In comparison, Anatomy offers characters that aren’t as fleshed out, a romance with considerably less build-up and hardly any chemistry, a story that drags, and a mystery introduced far too late that took far too little effort for me to solve. The ending didn’t clear things up, only muddle them further, and although I’ll read nearly any book at this point, including sequels to books I wasn’t the biggest fan of, I have no interest in the upcoming sequel to this one. All this book did was intensify my desire to reread SJTR, sorry not sorry.
If I had more energy, I could write about how disappointing it was to see Hazel scoff at the other girls her age for being feminine when Audrey Rose embraced both her femininity and her love for forensics. To see Hazel and Jack go from accomplices that didn’t care about one another to wanting to kiss each other nearly fast enough to give me whiplash when Audrey Rose and Thomas had one of the best slow-burns I’ve ever read, with lots of yearning and lingering glances and stolen kisses.
But I don’t have the energy for that, so I won’t. And maybe that’s better, because I really don’t think I’m supposed to be comparing the two books so strongly anyway. I just can’t help it. Sorry, Dana Schwartz, but Kerri Maniscalco did it first and did it better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
((I briefly debated giving this a lower rating, but I couldn’t bring myself to be mean. If SJTR hadn’t already taken over my life, I probably would’ve liked this more. Maybe. We’ll never know. So, three stars it is.))
If I had more energy, I could write about how disappointing it was to see Hazel scoff at the other girls her age for being feminine when Audrey Rose embraced both her femininity and her love for forensics. To see Hazel and Jack go from accomplices that didn’t care about one another to wanting to kiss each other nearly fast enough to give me whiplash when Audrey Rose and Thomas had one of the best slow-burns I’ve ever read, with lots of yearning and lingering glances and stolen kisses.
But I don’t have the energy for that, so I won’t. And maybe that’s better, because I really don’t think I’m supposed to be comparing the two books so strongly anyway. I just can’t help it. Sorry, Dana Schwartz, but Kerri Maniscalco did it first and did it better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
((I briefly debated giving this a lower rating, but I couldn’t bring myself to be mean. If SJTR hadn’t already taken over my life, I probably would’ve liked this more. Maybe. We’ll never know. So, three stars it is.))
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, and Medical content
Moderate: Death and Incest
Terminal illness - a plague spreading through Edinburgh. Death - said plague killed the protagonist’s brother prior to the story. Incest - protagonist is supposed to marry her cousin. Also contains a scene where the protagonist delivers a baby, though it’s not especially graphic and both the baby and the mother survive.