Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

Anatomy: A Love Story

 

by Dana Schwartz

3.50 out of 5 Stars

 

***Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review***

 

Anatomy is a gothic historical fiction set in 1817 Edinburgh following Hazel as she seeks to find her way to becoming a surgeon. To get the practical education she needs with cadavers, she works with resurrection man Jack to dig up corpses despite the odd disappearances happening in the city and the return of the Roman Fever.  

Given the premise, I really wanted to love this book. I wanted to love this book so badly. It seemed so wonderfully gothic and perfectly set up to be a creepy ambiance to get me ready for Halloween. But instead, while I enjoyed it, it just didn't deliver in some important ways. Although, this is 1000% a book to buy if you are looking for an aesthetic bookshelf -- I mean, just look at that gorgeousness of a book cover.

Plot: 

I loved the plot and the setting of the story. I don't know how much of Edinburgh specifically was really coming through the pages, so much as general Great Britain vibes, but the time period and the medical understandings for that period were fantastic. It is the perfect opportunity to have a very earnest desire to believe these fantastical beliefs about science -- things that we know today to be wrong, but back then were illusions that could reach tangibility if you could figure it out. Using this foundation, I also loved the story of a young woman trying to become a physician or surgeon. That aspect of the story never once wavered, and I think it was developed wonderfully. We see the build to finding education, the obstacles that organically are put in her path, and how she creatively carves her own way to achieving what she wants. It was excellent. 

Characters: 

Hazel -- Hazel is a rich girl, but incredibly intelligent not just naturally, but through constant and consistent self-education, which I think was a great aspect to her character. We find out how she used to sneak into her dad's study past bedtime to read medical text books, and that tenacity in her pursuant of knowledge is exemplified in her actions throughout the course of the story. She's a bit single-minded when it comes to becoming a physician, but I think that's just par for the course for her. I wouldn't expect anything else, and I think her character was well-developed.

 

Jack -- No idea who Jack was. There are the basic facts about where he comes from, what drives his actions, and what he looks like, but there weren't enough nuances about personality quirks, deeply emotional reveals, or otherwise extended development of his character. Overall, he was kind of just there to serve a purpose to Hazel? Which, if this were a story solely about Hazel, I would still not like it, but I wouldn't mind it as much. As it is, there is a romance between them, and it just feels like Jack is underdeveloped.

Writing: 

Sadly, this is where I think I struggled with the book. The writing overall wasn't bad, but it also was difficult to get through at times because it felt choppy. It wasn't a smooth reading experience. There were moments when the language was flowing really nicely, but it was inconsistent. Because of the evidence that there can be really good passages of writing, I don't know how the book as a whole came to have those choppy parts in them, but it makes me wonder what the entire writing process looked like for the author.

 

Also, I don't think there was any need for there to be actual fantastical elements to this story. Like, at all. This is my biggest pet peeve with the book and why I only gave it three stars on Goodreads. The fantasy piece was so minimally there, that it was a huge distraction when it came up. This should have remained a historical fiction and that's it. I'm not even going to add a "fantasy" label to this review. Like I said earlier, the great thing about this time period is that science and medicine was still so unknown and exciting it already felt fantastical. To try to mix in actual fantasy with that felt so out of place. I don't think it's impossible to fantasy books written in this time period, but I think the presence of fantasy needed to be much, much stronger in order for it to be properly incorporated into the story.

 

Thanks for reading!