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Paulina's Reviews > The Lost Apothecary
The Lost Apothecary
by
by
How did this book go so very wrong???
The concept is interesting - a female apothecary in late 1700s London, betrayed by her lover long ago, helps the women of London to dispose of troublesome males in their lives. A young girl comes to her shop, eventually throwing the entire operation into upheaval. A modern day "historian" stumbles across clues from the past. The mystery will be unraveled. So far so good.
The book was at times interesting, captivating even. I know nothing of London history and I don't much care that apparently some of it was incorrect, as other reviewers mentioned. However, I simply cannot forgive some of the choices made by the author. This is a book about women, written, to my great surprise, by a woman (I checked, several times!) and yet our nefarious apothecary is reduced almost entirely to the single trait of not having been able to have children, the current day would-be historian who chose marriage over career (what?) is in the middle of a messy baby fever/unfaithful husband situation, while the 12 year old, though thankfully not pregnant, has somehow grown up on a farm, with a living mother, and at TWELVE does not know about menstruation. Maybe it was meant as a ploy to tie these characters together by their shared feature of womb possession? Was this to be the nurturing flip side to the gross men in their lives? No matter the reason, it unfortunately resulted in three almost completely unlikable, and frankly unrelatable, characters.
And if that wasn't bad enough, the rest of the plot unfortunately was also a huge let down. In the 1790s part of the book, what started as an interesting couple of murders ended in a convoluted, messy and ultimately unclear way. Meanwhile in our time, the 200 year old mystery gets solved through Google, a trip to the library, and one logic-defying walk down an alley in a mere THREE days, despite such distractions as potential pregnancy and sleazeball husbands. It's no surprise then that our modern day heroine applies to Cambridge with such enviable confidence, certain she is about to embark on a NINE MONTH masters program. UGH.
The concept is interesting - a female apothecary in late 1700s London, betrayed by her lover long ago, helps the women of London to dispose of troublesome males in their lives. A young girl comes to her shop, eventually throwing the entire operation into upheaval. A modern day "historian" stumbles across clues from the past. The mystery will be unraveled. So far so good.
The book was at times interesting, captivating even. I know nothing of London history and I don't much care that apparently some of it was incorrect, as other reviewers mentioned. However, I simply cannot forgive some of the choices made by the author. This is a book about women, written, to my great surprise, by a woman (I checked, several times!) and yet our nefarious apothecary is reduced almost entirely to the single trait of not having been able to have children, the current day would-be historian who chose marriage over career (what?) is in the middle of a messy baby fever/unfaithful husband situation, while the 12 year old, though thankfully not pregnant, has somehow grown up on a farm, with a living mother, and at TWELVE does not know about menstruation. Maybe it was meant as a ploy to tie these characters together by their shared feature of womb possession? Was this to be the nurturing flip side to the gross men in their lives? No matter the reason, it unfortunately resulted in three almost completely unlikable, and frankly unrelatable, characters.
And if that wasn't bad enough, the rest of the plot unfortunately was also a huge let down. In the 1790s part of the book, what started as an interesting couple of murders ended in a convoluted, messy and ultimately unclear way. Meanwhile in our time, the 200 year old mystery gets solved through Google, a trip to the library, and one logic-defying walk down an alley in a mere THREE days, despite such distractions as potential pregnancy and sleazeball husbands. It's no surprise then that our modern day heroine applies to Cambridge with such enviable confidence, certain she is about to embark on a NINE MONTH masters program. UGH.
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Reading Progress
February 2, 2022
–
Started Reading
February 3, 2022
– Shelved
February 3, 2022
– Shelved as:
to-read
February 3, 2022
–
Finished Reading
