This book was, in short, underwhelming. I’ll admit that before reading it I was a bit influenced by some of the rave reviews who said it was a smart and funny feminist novel. Once I actually got into the book, I was met with a book of average intelligence and decent wit, at best.

I’ll start with the things I liked. First, there were some parts that made me chuckle. Jeanne-Pauline Marat publishing the book How to Kill Your Husband which is then interpreted as a satire was a standout to me, as well as the quip about Mary’s cakes being popular because she’s putting cocaine in the icing. I also somewhat liked the characters from the Squalid Mile. Jeanne-Pauline and George were nice, and Mary Robespierre was interesting I guess. I couldn’t fully like them, though, for reasons I’m about to explain.

I did not like the writing style in this book. It tells the reader everything in explicit terms, leaving absolutely no margins for us to interpret what we’re reading. When Sadie and Marie meet and become friends, we are told that they get along well and they like each other, and we are told what they do together, but we never get to see them get to know each other or do things together in a way that makes their relationship feel real. Every character in the book suffers from the same problem. There is a marked lack of dialogue in this book, so instead of using dialogue as a vehicle to more subtly show the reader how characters think/feel, the narration directly tells us what each character thinks or feels.

One example I wrote down was from page 51 when Louis is reminiscing on his wife Hortense’s depression: “He viewed his wife’s sadness as something he had endured.” This does technically tell us about Louis’ character, but the wording drive me insane. “He viewed his wife’s sadness…” is so passive that I feel completely disconnected from any revelations about Louis’ personality that comes from this line that he still feels completely flat. If it had been written along the lines of “He had endured his wife’s sadness…” that would feel like an improvement. Same with the line “He acted as though he’d had to cope…” Just say “he’d had to cope” with her depression. It still tells us he’s a shitty and uncaring person in a less passive/more effective way.

And because the dialogue is so sparse, when we do get actual dialogue from the characters it feels strange. Mary’s revolutionary speech to Jeanne-Pauline comes to mind. A lot of the dialogue, especially the lines about the revolution, feels like the character is just reading off a teleprompter or something. It doesn’t feel like these are things these characters might naturally say, but rather something they are saying solely because the author wants to toss a particular talking point into the book and couldn’t think of a more subtle or natural way to do it. I honestly felt like I was watching a shadow puppet play, with how little dimension these characters have. The only reason I liked the Squalid Mile characters was because I thought they were doing more interesting stuff than Sadie and Marie.

And on the topic of subtlety, this book has none. As if it’s not bad enough that we’re directly told every single thought and feeling of each character, the morals and themes of this book are stated outright multiple times. Reading this book, I felt like my intelligence was being insulted, as if the author thought the audience wouldn’t have the reading comprehension and analysis skills to read the plot and understand the themes of female empowerment and subversion.

I also want to touch on the author’s use of French Revolutionary figures in this book. We have characters based off of Marie Antoinette, the Marquis de Sade, Jean-Paul Marat, Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Danton, and King Louis XVI (I’m assuming Louis Antoine is a reference to King Louis. I’ve seen other reviewers speculate he could be a different Louis from the revolution, but I have a hard time believing Louis Antoine is anything but a reference to the monarch or some other aristocrat from the era). I can understand what the author was doing, but I’m not sure if it worked for me. I also thought the narrative was conflicted on where it stood on Marie towards the end of the book in a girlboss feminist kind of way. That particular aspect could just be a result of how annoyed I was with this book and Marie as a character though.

And as if it is not obvious enough that these are references, Marie Antoine and Sadie Arnett dress up as Marie Antoinette and the Marquis de Sade for a ball. For what? The only way the author could have been more direct was to straight up write “Marie Antoine is Marie Antoinette, and Sadie Arnett is the Marquis de Sade, and…” Can you spare a crumb of subtlety, just one? Just a single crumb, for me?

Also that reveal about George at the end felt unnecessary and nonsensical.

Now, this is a very critical review of this book, and yet I have given it two whole stars. Don’t ask why. When I went to rate this book, I looked deep into my heart of hearts and felt this was two stars rather than one based off of vibes I guess. The thought of giving it even 1.5 stars feels slightly wrong, perhaps because I did enjoy some small parts of the book. Idk, I'm a vibes-based rater at heart