engallop's Book Journey

As it stands, some-odd hours after finishing this book, I have some complicated feelings. Complicated feelings born out of love.

First off, I love the premise of this book. Macabre historical horror based on real-life practices? Absolutely up my alley. The Anatomical Venus are something that I learned about as a teenager, and much like the author of Slashed Beauties, they were something that fascinated me in their oddness and place in history. Add to that three compelling characters with tragic and complicated pasts akin to Elizabeth, Emily, and Eleanor, and eighteen- to nineteen-year-old me would have been obsessed with this book and made it my entire personality.

Unfortunately, (again, this is born OUT OF LOVE) grown-up me does take umbrage with some structure and plot choices made with this book.

While I am normally fine with converging timelines, I did find the Alys chapters much weaker in comparison with Eleanor's chapters. I found Alys's POV for the first several of her chapters to be quite repetitive and tedious in the information the author chose to reveal and chose to kept secret, and it really interrupted the tension and build-up that Eleanor's chapters created. And that tension was easily one of the highlights of the book for me - the desperation in Elizabeth's actions and the decline in both her health and relationship with the other two girls, Emily's absolute agony, Polly, Eleanor trying to hold everything together as she realizes her own situation - it felt so palpable and gutting. So to have that momentum cut down by the next chapter felt jarring.

I also found the end rather rushed. All this tense build up, waiting to figure out how these two stories are going to converge and how the plot will get solved, and then all of a sudden everything seems to happen at once. I understood that magic/witchcraft was integral to the plot, but it caught me a little off-guard when all of a sudden, magic has happened - these girls are wax figures now - and there was very little to-do or ramp up to it. I understand that the story is in Eleanor's POV, but the fact that we're told after the fact about Elizabeth's deal with the anatomist and Briar^, without really getting a chance to see how this whole soul-transferal thing works, was a little disappointing. And I feel like from that point on there was a lot of plot summary - we're told a lot about the fire, we're told a lot about what happened to Eleanor after the fact, we're told what the coven thinks were Briar's motivations, we're told what Alys/Eleanor and co. thinks happened with Emily^^ - but we get to experience very little of it ourselves. Truth be told, I was a little disappointed that I turned the final page and didn't see a surprise epilogue chapter from Emily's POV, or even Elizabeth's, which would have felt like a breath of fresh air. I guess mostly my question that I was left with was - did the beginning/middle of this story get the ending it really deserved? And to be honest, I'm not sure.

Overall, again, I love this story in concept, and truth be told about 85% of it I really did like. But I wish there was more of a connection between the tension and despair that I felt in the beginning and middle, and the payoff at the end.

Still, like I said, Teenage Engallop is out there somewhere adsorbing this book into their personality and probably being a little insufferable about it.

^ Side rant #1: I support women's rights and women's wrongs etc. etc., but I do really wish that we got a bit more insight into Elizabeth and even the anatomist. There was a bit of a sympathetic glance in their direction, but I do feel like there was a more general swing in the direction of "nah these ladies are evil". Which again, women can be despicable! Elizabeth does horrific things, up to and including Emily and Eleanor's wax model choices! But also, I think the complexity of Elizabeth's character, and the anatomist's motivations didn't reach their full potential. We lose the fact a little bit that they're all victims of their own ambition and undoing, which is the ultimate tragedy.

^^ Side rant #2: God I wish we got more Emily in this novel. Not even a reflection of how well or how poorly she was written, I just think she's interesting, intelligent, and has such good instincts that while the naivety of Eleanor's character made sense storytelling-wise, I would give my eyeteeth for Emily's narrative. Although I will say discussing leaving a woman to die when said woman is feverish and not fully coherent but is alive and could possibly hear your scheming is... not a smart choice. But still - love her.

Edited to add: I also want to highlight the author's notes, which I appreciate. While I was familiar with the Anatomical Venus coming into this story, I was not aware of the Harris's List nor their availability through public domain, which sounds like another fascinating rabbit hole to delve into.