The Lost Apothecary: Mini Review

This was the perfect measure of drama, heart, poetry and magic.

Neila runs her late mother’s apothecary, set up in the 1700s to help heal women’s ailments. But after a horrible betrayal from her lover, Neila helps to poison men who have wronged their partners. This is all pulled apart when we meet Eliza.

The book follows Caroline in the modern day, who is on the path to finding herself, uncovering the mystery of the apothecary murders and realising that she rules her own life.

I loved the theme of postions in this book, I loved how part of it was set in 1700s London and the mystery element also.

It all tied together so well, it was poetic and dramatic! Everything you need and want.

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

The opening themes in this book were top tier;

• Dystopian
• Colonies on Mars
• Owning an animal as a class symbol
• Androids passing as humans
• Androids passing as animals
• Bounty Hunter on a Android killing rampage to buy a real live ostrich to impress his neighbour

What more could you want?

The first two thirds of this book were fantastic but it all ended so weird. It’s like the author lost track and gave up. It descended into the main character describing android tits, cheating on his wife and becoming the god of human empathy. I was so disappointed. It all became very muddled at the end and it made no sense, I can’t even remember if he bought his ostrich.

I definitely got caught up on the opening themes and didnt let it go, maybe someone else can make more sense out of this one! It’s a shame for me because I love to read dystopian novels. I love that when all is gone, humans are still awful. The imagery of high rises, class systems, survival and money are all interesting and were still present in this novel but the ending has ruined it for me.

I feel like we’ve been spoilt with dystopian fiction such as 1984 and Farenheit 451 and have set the bar too high for novels like this to match up to. Although, I’m glad I read this because it was sat looking at me on my bookshelf for about 2 years.

Thanks for reading,

Charlon ♦︎

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The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

This started with the promise of exploring the duality of love and hate and I was intrigued and excited to read on.

The imagery of strawberries running through this novel are fun and very unique. What was not so unique however were the traditional gender roles played out by the lead cisgender characters. It was hard to read in places because it reminded me of a typical ‘he’s a bastard but he loves me’ narrative and it turned me off.

A lot of this is my fault, I didn’t read reviews before buying this book and if I did I would have realised that it wouldn’t have interested me too much.

Not to put this book down too much though, it is a very easy read, it’s funny and I do believe a lot of people will like this book if a bit of smut and cute relationships is for you.

Thanks for reading,

Charlon ♦︎

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Featured image by Lewis Fagg on unsplash.com