uncomfortable and improbable - not at all what i was hoping it would be

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shilo1364 Avatar

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DNFed at page 236. I skimmed the rest, found more of the same, and figure I've given it a fair shot for 236 pages, and if I've nothing good to say now I might as well not waste any more time on it.

I was drawn in by the description and thought it looked fabulous, and so used my bookishfirst points to claim an ARC. Which I regret now, tbh.

At first I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and even found myself interested in the plot as it zipped along and growing slightly fond of Buc and Eld. That quickly soured. Buc is supposed to be this Sherlock Holmes character - and in some ways she is, from her rapid mind to her drug habit. But in other ways, she really isn't. She jumps to conclusions, refuses to take care of herself (causing her more problems later) and is so sure that she's brilliant when most of her successes seem to be down to dumb luck. The sheer improbability of the events that come rapid-fire on top of one another soon made me lose what little interest in the plot I had. But those aren't my main problem.

The biggest problem I have with this novel is the way it treats women. Now, you might say 'oh, but Buc is a woman! and the widowmaker as well!" and that's true. However.

-Buc seems to despise all women. She even calls one a c*** to her face which strikes me as a little over the top, even with the amount of profanity and crude language in the book.

-*Every* woman is beautiful and has a propensity to wear threadbare clothes and stand in front of bright lights... and has their figure described.

-Buc is scrawny and several times mentions her lack of breasts and then after being so ill she loses weight she thinks about how it all goes on her butt and now even that curve is lessened. She really doesn't come off as a street rat here.

-Aaaaaand the hints of romance.

-The ARC has a sticker indicating the ages are wrong and Buc is 17 and Eld 19 in the finished copy. Which would be fine but in the ARC they’re 16 and nearly 22 which is a bit... uncomfortable. The ages are also brought up repeatedly so I'm not sure how much they changed in the finished copy.

-Not only that, but Eld apparently rescued Buc from the streets when he was 19 and she 14. He wonders if he's a lecher for falling for her. Immediately afterward, she assures him 'age is just a number.'

It just comes off as creepy in a lot of places tbh and I have wasted enough of my life reading this improbable and uncomfortable book.