Avery’s Reviews > The Girl in His Shadow > Status Update

And characters keep saying Nora is this “I’m not like other girls” kinda girl but all I’m seeing is her fold at like. A look from a guy. Girl can you lock the fuck in and do the medicine? Also a bit of internalized misogyny on her half and I’m not sure if it was intentional or not

The characters also seem so inconsistent. Like on one page Gibson tells us (that’s another issue, SO MUCH telling instead of showing and just generally treating the reader like an idiot) that Croft is a selfless man lacking ego, and then the next page has Croft essentially bragging about how none of his apprentices are at all unqualified. Like bro which is it??

Still pissing me off. A couple misspellings of antiquated words (tetotaler instead of tetotaller, primagravida instead of primigravida) which makes the already grating rhythm painted over with fancy prose so much more amateur sounding. Also for a seemingly feminist book it has yet to pass the Bechdel test. I’m dreading the romance so bad. Characters feel very inconsistent

I’m so mad I need to write more. I picked up this book for a historical fiction novel about a woman in medicine. NOT to hear about a random man I don’t give a fuck about get annoyed by this girl and a housekeeper. Good lord I’m so mad I’ve booked this and the sequel 😭 going from The Help to this is jarring and in a VERY BAD WAY

(I’m not finished) and now I gotta hear about how “Fetid odors lingered in the streets, insinuating their way into the house.” THATS NOT WHAT INSINUATING MEANS. ALSO WHY ARE WE SPELLING IT ODOR, THIS IS SET IN BRITAIN. Anyways the thing that might irk me most is the male POV. I can excuse it for the prologue but I’ve read 40 pages of this fucking book and about 6 of them have been from Nora’s perspective.

The rhythm is fucking grating. I need this author to PUT DOWN THE COMMAS. I mean look at this; “Francis Beady, a stationer, was gone already, buried in quicklime a week ago, but the wife, Margaret, ignored grief with an iron will.” It’s a slog to read, esp because the prose is overly flowery which makes it extra frustrating. I’m already being hypnotized by how repetitive the prose is and I also gotta hear