Things In Jars by Jess Kidd
(Format used for this read: Print–hardback)
I absolutely freaking ADORE Book Of The Month.
https://www.bookofthemonth.com/
As much as I love the library and it is one of my MOST FAVE places on the entire EARTH…I also realllllly like to buy new books.
Since the library here is *still* closed for perusing the shelves (you CAN still do curbside pick up…but it’s just not the same for me, yall 💔😔 The libray is an entire therapeutic experience for me…I need to walk up and down the aisles, touch and smell the books, see all the cover art and read all the book jackets….AND I MISS IT SO!), I have been buying *WAY* more brand new books than I did pre-pandemic times.
What I love about Book Of The Month is that it exposes me to all kinds of authors and genres I would not normally find on my own…the research has been done for me and a list of 5 cool brand new books is sent to me each month….all I gotta do is pick the one I want to show up at my door.
Which is harder than you think because usually I want AT LEAST two of them!
So my TBR pile on my bookshelf has grown pretty dang tall because of the cocktail of BOTM mixed with COVID19. 😬
My husband is always like “Why do you need MORE BOOKS when you have SO MANY ALREADY?”
All you fellow bookworms about there feel me when I say THERE CAN NEVER BE ENOUGH …..EVERRRRRRRRRRRRR
Am I right?!?!
A few months back, this book was on my list….once I read the description, I thought it would be an interesting one to dig into:
“Victorian London comes to life in this spellbinding mystery as an intrepid female sleuth wades through a murky world of collectors and criminals to recover a remarkable child.
Bridie Devine–flame- haired, pipe-smoking detective extraordinaire–is confronted with her most baffling puzzle yet: the kidnapping of Christabel Berwick, secret daughter of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick, a peculiar child whose reputed powers have captured the unwanted attention of collectors in this age of discovery.
Winding her way through the sooty streets of Victorian London, Bridie won’t rest until she finds the young girl, even if it means unearthing secrets about her own past that she’d rather keep buried. Luckily, her search is aided by an enchanting cast of characters, including a seven-foot-tall housemaid; a melancholic, tattoo-covered ghost; and an avuncular apothecary. But secrets abound in this foggy underworld where nothing is quite what it seems.
Blending darkness and light, Things In Jars is a mesmerizing novel that collapses the boundary between fact and fairy tale to stunning effect and explores what it means to be human in inhumane times.”
An odd effect of 2020 on me so far has been that I have read a lot more “mystery” type of books than I ever have before.
Usually that is NOT my jam, yall….I have no idea why I have started reading them more…
But hey, it’s 2020 and NOTHING is proceeding like normal…so whatevs I guess 🤷♂️
I have read quite a few since this year began and I gotta admit…I’m kinda digging them.
Especially when they are a tad bit unusual mixed with a bit of mystical and sprinkled with a dose of dry humor.
This book had allllll of that.
Notice I said MYSTERY…and not SCARY, yall…because even though 2020 is off the wall upside down in a bagillion ways, I still REALLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYY dislike anything super scary or violent.
I mean, I can stretch myself a bit in a few other ways….but taking a stroll down the scary path for an extended time period just AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN.
This book was a tad on the “odd” side…but I enjoy things that are different and a little “off”….it keeps things interesting for me!
Besides….the definition of the word “odd” is pretty relative, isn’t it?
This story had a smidge of a female Sherlock Holmes type of vibe to me…Bridie Devine is a self employed detective in London…she even has two “Watson”-esque unofficial side kicks.
One is her housekeeper, Cora, who is QUITE the most interesting woman that Bridie rescued from an abusive traveling circus …and the other is an attractive ghost who befriends her in a graveyard—a professional boxer named Ruby Doyle. (FYI: These two characters are the ones I love the most in the book)
So much can be said just about those three alone…but the pages are FULL of a plethora of richly developed characters that are as entertaining as they are riveting, whether they are considered villians, victims, or a mixture of both….they are equally strange and magical.
Sea creatures. Supernatural. Circus entertainers. Mad scientists. Trickster house staff…just to name a few you will encounter.
The author is Irish and English, so there were some vocabulary words (especially slang terms) I had to look up as I read….which I found to be quite informative and fun at the same time.
Something else that intrigued me as I read was that the story would jump around in time each chapter, slowly giving you more and more background to the history of the life stories of the characters….mostly Bridie.
Piece by piece the puzzle would come together in a slow yet logical way that allowed you to understand not only how events happened but also the motivation behind certain actions taken as well.
This book is kinda dark and mysterious…there are murders and traumatizing secrets and awful events that occur…but it also is quite beautiful…there are stories of dedicated love and close family and deep relationships.
Plus…there is plenty of dry English sarcastic humor…which is my love language.
There were lots of little underlying life messages too….one of my most favorite was that a family looks different for each one of us…sometimes our closest members are those who do not share blood with us, but just those who we share a deep love and connection with.
I really liked reading this book but I DO have two annoying confessions I have to make to yall:
- It took me SEVERAL CHAPTERS to not read the main characters name as BIRDIE. Her name is BRIDIE–short for Bridget—but for some reason I kept freaking reading it as BIRDIE over and over again. I would literally make myself go back and reread her name repeatedly so I could get it stamped on my brain pronounced the correct way. I DROVE MYSELF BONKERS WITH THAT!😬
2. It also took me several chapters to REALLY get into the story….for some reason it just got off to a slow start to me and I was HIGHLY doubtful I would thoroughly enjoy this pick…but I am happy to say that once things got rolling, it was full speed ahead into enjoyment for me.
I’m not sure others in my book club will enjoy this months pick…whenever I suggest something it seems to fall flat with most 😂…..but I give it two thumbs up!
Spectacular fictional escape for me.
Plus the end leaves the door open for interpretation as to what happens next….and I kinda like it when authors let the reader’s imagination determine the future of the story…she kinda pushes you the direction she thinks you could go, but only a teensy bit.
Go read it and see what I mean 😊
P.S. This would be a wonderful BBC production in my opinion…..