CHARLOTTE AND SHERLOCK HOLMES ARE THE SAME PERSON
Book Rating: PG-13 (High PG-13 for Language)
Language: High PG-13 (f*ck is used throughout. Not used like every other sentence, but once or twice per chapter. Also used are d*mn, h*ll, b*tch, b*stard, sh*t)
Sex: PG/PG-13 (There is no actual sex in the book. One character is raped before the story begins and talks about it. One character jokingly asks if she should “spread my legs right here” when a character is calling her a slut. Someone asks several times if two characters are sleeping together)
Violence: PG (There is a murder at the school without blood and there is an attempted murder where a girl is bludgeoned and a diamond is stuffed into her throat. A building explodes, but we don’t see the actual event. We hear about a man hanging himself)
Drugs/Alcohol: PG-13 (The main character is addicted to oxycodone and talks about being addicted to cocaine and heroin in the past. She struggles throughout the book. Teenage smoking and drinking)
A Study in Charlotte is basically a modern version of Sherlock Holmes. It follows the descendants of Sherlock Holmes (Charlotte) and John Watson (Jaime) as they solve a mystery in their sophomore year at boarding school.
I liked this book. I actually liked this book a lot. It had a great mystery, great dynamic characters, and a good amount of action. I liked the fact that Sherlock Holmes was a girl this time around and that Jaime Watson was just as naïve and confused as John Watson at times.
The mystery was really good the whole way through. It introduced you to every person at the very beginning and made you suspect them all. I couldn’t figure it out so when it was finally revealed I was nice and surprised. I liked the way the villain went about getting Jaime and Charlotte’s attention by reenacting mysteries from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I learned about several stories that I’m now interested in picking up and reading.
Jaime Watson was a good narrator. He was engaging from the very first sentence. He was a little quirky, funny, and ridiculously sarcastic at times. I loved his back story and the fact that he romanticized Charlotte Holmes growing up and dreamed they were off on all sorts of adventures together as kids. It was cute. Jaime was a lot like John in a way. He was quiet, a bit snarky, a little naïve, and always trying to save a Holmes from his/herself.
The only real problem I had with this book was with Charlotte. Don’t get me wrong, I loved her as a character. She was witty and a little distant. Distracted and too smart to give anyone the time of day. She would’ve been perfect if she was original. CHARLOTTE IS EXACTLY LIKE SHERLOCK. The only noticeable difference between them was that Charlotte was a little bit more emotional. She showed Jaime how much she cared for him on several occasions throughout the novel, something that Sherlock would never do with John. Other than that, Charlotte had the same exact personality as Sherlock. She went off on tangents when deducing or observing something. Her older brother, the tech wiz who is part of MI5 and has unlimited resources is named Milo. MYcroft, MIlo. Two syllables, same sound at the beginning. Same person. Charlotte had a lab. She had the same drug problem as Sherlock. The only difference in that was that she was addicted to oxy. Several times throughout the book, I became confused and was convinced I was reading something out of Sherlock Holmes because the two were so alike.
I liked Charlotte, but I had to dock a star because I only liked her because she was Sherlock Holmes in a girl’s body.
Overall, this book was a fun and fast read. It kept me reading from the very first chapter. (I have to give credit to Jaime Watson as the narrator for that though). The mystery was very good and the characters overall were engaging and interesting. It’s the perfect read for a rainy day.
“At best, our friendship made me feel as though I was a part of something larger, something grander; that, with her, I’d been given access to a world whose unseen currents ran parallel to ours.”
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