A Study In Charlotte Review

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

RATING:

SYNOPSIS (from Goodreads):The last thing Jamie Watson wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s great-great-great-granddaughter, who has inherited not only Sherlock’s genius but also his volatile temperament. From everything Jamie has heard about Charlotte, it seems safer to admire her from afar.

From the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else. But when a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances, ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Jamie can no longer afford to keep his distance. Jamie and Charlotte are being framed for murder, and only Charlotte can clear their names. But danger is mounting and nowhere is safe—and the only people they can trust are each other.

As far as my enjoyment factor of this book, it was through the roof! I loved Charlotte and Jamie and their complicated relationship with each other, and the idea of following the descendants of the original Holmes and Watson was really interesting. I loved the way they made the characters seem like they were real people (they say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is their literary agent and helped publish their books).

There are a few things that I would like to see better explained in the books, and one of those things would be Charlotte’s drug dependency. I know that her ‘ancestor’ Sherlock also had drug dependency issues, but I wish that it would’ve addressed the issue more and oh, I don’t know, said that they are bad and that they shouldn’t be romanticized? I mean, come on, she said she started doing coke at like, age 11! I thought that it was pretty unrealistic, especially since no one really wanted to get her help because her ancestor also struggled with it so she has to struggle with it too. That kind of irritated me, because while it is a retelling, can’t we make her a little bit different?

And while I did like Charlotte and Jamie, there were a few things that I couldn’t get over, like the fact that Jamie really isn’t all that intelligent (when compared to Charlotte he seems really out of place) and hes always wanting to hit things and is a little bit of the stereotypical rugby jock.

And finally, the last thing that I didn’t really like was how info-dumpy this book was. Normally, I don’t mind info dumps, but in this case they kinda seemed like they came out of nowhere. Charlotte’s deductions weren’t really given much background as to how she came to her conclusions, and the villain how-I-almost-got-away-with-it speech at the end was kind of ridiculous. HOWEVER. I could be feeling this way because I’ve never read the original Sherlock tales or watched any of the adaptations, so its possible that this was just staying true to the original so keep that in mind.

Overall, I really did enjoy this book and the mystery, which I had the hardest time guessing who the murderer was! So because I enjoyed it mostly, I am giving this a 3.5 star rating! It was super fun and I flew through it!