Very mild spoiler alert.
It's been a while since I reviewed a book, and for good reason - bad books don't tempt me, and good books haven't found me. I'm not entirely sure what I think of this one. I snagged it off of a relative's shelf. I usually read YA fiction, but recently the genre has grown so tedious and repetitive that I decided to take a chance on adult fiction. (Seriously, been in a YA section lately? There are two categories: paranormal romance, and high school romance. And then decent fantasy, but Tamora Pierce, and maybe Holly Black, don't count. Digging through YA to find the good stuff is like rummaging through a vat of electric eels to find a kernel of corn.)
Anyway, I'm glad I picked up this book, for one. It taught me that adult fiction/romance isn't necessarily totally awful, like most of it has been for me (I guess I just snagged the bad ones, or this one was an exception?).
For one, the characters felt real to me - or at the very least, the main character, Fiona Finnegan, did. I empathized with her the whole way through the book (or at least most of the time). She always felt real. Unfortunately, the main love interest, Joe, did not. Except at the very beginning, I simply could not figure out why she loved him so much, and Joe struck me as a person who, at times, was as dumb as a sack of rocks on a parasail above the Atlantic Ocean.
The descriptions were admirable at times, excellent at best, and decent at worst. I feel like I got a good feel for what Whitechapel is like, despite having never been to England. On the other hand, the villains felt unreal. Not like a murderer or hardened criminal from your worst nightmares. More like the plastic toys from your worst nightmares.
When it came to the descriptions of business - a concept on which the story hinges largely - all I can say is that I now feel eager to open my own shop and go out and make my own fortune, because the way that Donnelly described it, I feel like I understand all there is to know about entrepreneurship now.
And I'd have to say my favorite character was Nick Soames. First I feared that he was going to be the Replacement Love Interest. Then, the Stereotypical Gay Friend. He defied both of my lousy expectations and was average, at least, as a character. But as the story progressed, and there was a time skip briefly after a court interlude (and to say any more would definitely be major spoilers, I believe), and the chapters following that made him shine as a person and as a character.
Overall, I feel this book deserves about an 8 out of 10. I feel like I'm being just a tad generous, but in any case, Jennifer Donnelly certainly knows how to capture my attention, which is admirable, seeing as the book had more than eighty chapters. For that alone, I'll give it my recommendation, if "Victoriandustrial" is your thing.
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