I finished A Study in Scarlet Women just a little over a day ago. I immediately excitedly screamed out my review and then promptly dived into the next book. After staying up way too late reading, something that I never regret until I’m at my computer working the next day, a freak power outage allowed to power through the end.
Thank goodness, because I was considering sneak-reading so I could figure out what the heck was going on! I had so many weird (and completely wrong!) theories going through my mind. This reminds me of the fun that I’ve had speculating with other series as I’ve read them. And even though I don’t have years between each book to dissect and come up with wild theories, I’m still enjoying the hell out of it.
Navessa told me that these books are best experienced as you read them, and she’s right. So, I’ll be as oblique as possible. Charlotte is, quite possibly, one of my favorite female main characters ever. She’s smart. So intelligent that you can see it in the minutest decision she makes. This is not a character that we’re told over and over again is smart only to see her make one stupid decision after the other. This is a character that evaluates all angles, truly considers possibilities, honestly gauges actions and their reactions.
Charlotte doesn’t conform to society’s strictures or rules, but she doesn’t blithely ignore them either. She acknowledges they are there, but she works within and around them to accomplish her goals. Charlotte has strong emotions, but she often doesn’t know what to do with them, and works more easily with the practical. I love this about her. She doesn’t expect everything to fall into line because she wishes it to be so. She takes steps to make things go her way.
I would say, however, that Charlotte is incredibly lucky to be surrounded by the people that she is. Not all of them, of course (I could smack some of them), but she has a strong supportive network that envelops her.
I’ve talked a lot about Charlotte, but all of the secondary characters are just as well developed and just as interesting. I love every moment we spend with each of them.
I’m also really loving the oh-so-slowly developing romantic subplot. Like more than is probably a healthy amount. I’m very invested in this relationship. Though, weirdly enough, I could have been easily persuaded to be just as invested in another relationship that became a possibility in this book.
The plot here seemed so straight forward at first – I thought I had some (maybe) small chance of keeping up with it. Very quickly everything got much more complicated and I had no hope in hell of determining what was happening when or where, and I was texting Navessa all wild conjectures and ideas about who was doing what and why. None of them were right, and somehow the truth was even better.
I’m also left eager to dive into the next book. I cannot get enough. I must have more. It’s all I can do to come write my review, quickly with as much sense as I can make, before I open up my Kindle again.
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