“I was maybe the only person to ever have his imaginary friend made real.”

*blink, blink*

Let me just double check the genre for this book.

Yup. Right there. Young Adult.

I won’t diverge from the actual review today. I’ll just say that this book is a great example of the problem I’ll be speaking about in a later blog.

A Study in Charlotte is very mature and could have stood its ground on any adult shelf - minus the YA cover. Never once did I roll my eyes at the YA-ness of it all. The writing was witty, strong, and conveyed a lot of meaning. I understand that the characters are teenagers, but did that mean the book needed to be shelved in YA?

“The two of us, we're the best kind of disaster. Apples and oranges. Well, more like apples and machetes.”

I was warned. The book is dark. So I figured brutal murders, crazy bad guys, but not what popped out of the page in the first third of the book. Sexual assault. Drug abuse. The book should have come with a warning label. Does it make me a bad person to say that I loved every moment of it? So much so that I’ve given the book 5 stars.

Though, I don’t recommend reading the book while you’re sick. I don’t know if it was my fuddled brain or the writing, but the story would jump and I couldn’t follow along. We would be in one place in a sentence and then across town in the next. I’d try to go back and reread, catch the moment of travel or transition, but never seemed to find them. Since I couldn’t trust myself, I didn’t let this take away from the perfect rating. I’ll just have to see if it’s the case with the next book. There is no doubt that I will read, and own, the next book.

“We weren't Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I was ok with that, I thought. We had things they didn't, too. Like electricity, and refrigerators. And Mario Kart.”

If you love the original Sherlock Holmes stories, then I think you’ll love this story too. I’ve never read them, but they breathed the examples I’ve seen in the movies. Charlotte is exactly what you’d expect in a female Holmes. And the best part, Cavallaro isn’t trying to recreate the same great men in different bodies. She’s created their legacy. She’s imagined a world where their relatives are now running the show. A very smart move.

The mystery part of it all is a classic “who done it“ case. Not bad, but hard for me to stomach since I’m not a fan of mystery. However, the characters are so well done, and their interactions so crisp, that I turned the page with a ferocious appetite, falling in love with the new generation. Cavallaro creates art on the page with the witty comparisons and strong first person POV. Jamie will soon become our next well loved character. And a great example of an author writing from the opposite sex.

In all, I dare anyone to not put this on their list. It’s just a perfect surprise in sheep’s clothing - don’t let the cover fool you. Now, I just need to figure out how I’ll get my hands on the next ones.

Happy Reading

Love Kait

Reading Challenge: (27/100)