A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro
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.
I was excited to read this for basically one (1) reason: Holmes and Watson in the modern day.
Brittany Cavallaro delivers masterfully on the Holmes induction, and the story is packed with the brilliant deductions we know and love from Sherlock. No complaints on that front. The mystery itself, however, fell just a little flat. All the “suspects” seemed just that: suspects. There were no real characters in this book aside from James and Charlotte. Everyone else just seemed like hazy peripheral planets orbiting these two.
Rather, everything seemed to orbit Charlotte. She’s borderline crazy, razor-sharp, and not interested in pleasantries. By contrast, one would expect the athletic James to be the outgoing and friendly one, as a way to balance the partnership. To say it simply, he is not. James is also a rebel who is tired of playing sports and sucks at making friends. He is also, obviously, nowhere near as good of a detective as Holmes (Charlotte can switch on the charm easily, so she’s also perfectly capable of getting people to spill information to her). Therefore his constant fear of being Holmes’s sidekick is .. very valid, because he does basically nothing in the plot. Nor does he really provide anything of value to Charlotte, except being a dedicated fangirl.
Charlotte is also not very likable, to be completely honest. She doesn’t really do anything nice to offset her bursts of coldness, and she doesn’t bother informing Watson about anything. She is an amazing detective, but she has no other redeeming qualities. I found it really hard to root for her, because she seems like a dangerous narrow-minded detective, and there is really nothing more to her than meets the eye.
I have to say that the intricacies of the Holmes-Watson heritages is handled very nicely, especially with the numerous aunts, uncles, brothers, and siblings that are all part of the family now that several generations have passed from the Sherlock-John duo.
It was also refreshing to see the way that James handles his father, and his parents’ divorce. Instead of the angry venting that we’ve come to expect, James takes it all in stride and really does his best to make things work even if his family is peculiar in many ways.
The story is also inexplicably set in Connecticut, which is just odd. Both Charlotte and James are British, as are their families, so the setting is just bizarre. They could just as easily have been in a boarding school in England??
Overall, I kept waiting for A Study in Charlotte to pick up, but it just didn’t deliver on its promises. The lack of chemistry between the main characters, the absence of a gripping plot, and the flatness of the characters unfortunately made this book one that failed to live up to its potential.
Do, however, check out its beautiful trailer!
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.
I was excited to read this for basically one (1) reason: Holmes and Watson in the modern day.
Brittany Cavallaro delivers masterfully on the Holmes induction, and the story is packed with the brilliant deductions we know and love from Sherlock. No complaints on that front. The mystery itself, however, fell just a little flat. All the “suspects” seemed just that: suspects. There were no real characters in this book aside from James and Charlotte. Everyone else just seemed like hazy peripheral planets orbiting these two.
Rather, everything seemed to orbit Charlotte. She’s borderline crazy, razor-sharp, and not interested in pleasantries. By contrast, one would expect the athletic James to be the outgoing and friendly one, as a way to balance the partnership. To say it simply, he is not. James is also a rebel who is tired of playing sports and sucks at making friends. He is also, obviously, nowhere near as good of a detective as Holmes (Charlotte can switch on the charm easily, so she’s also perfectly capable of getting people to spill information to her). Therefore his constant fear of being Holmes’s sidekick is .. very valid, because he does basically nothing in the plot. Nor does he really provide anything of value to Charlotte, except being a dedicated fangirl.
Charlotte is also not very likable, to be completely honest. She doesn’t really do anything nice to offset her bursts of coldness, and she doesn’t bother informing Watson about anything. She is an amazing detective, but she has no other redeeming qualities. I found it really hard to root for her, because she seems like a dangerous narrow-minded detective, and there is really nothing more to her than meets the eye.
I have to say that the intricacies of the Holmes-Watson heritages is handled very nicely, especially with the numerous aunts, uncles, brothers, and siblings that are all part of the family now that several generations have passed from the Sherlock-John duo.
It was also refreshing to see the way that James handles his father, and his parents’ divorce. Instead of the angry venting that we’ve come to expect, James takes it all in stride and really does his best to make things work even if his family is peculiar in many ways.
The story is also inexplicably set in Connecticut, which is just odd. Both Charlotte and James are British, as are their families, so the setting is just bizarre. They could just as easily have been in a boarding school in England??
Overall, I kept waiting for A Study in Charlotte to pick up, but it just didn’t deliver on its promises. The lack of chemistry between the main characters, the absence of a gripping plot, and the flatness of the characters unfortunately made this book one that failed to live up to its potential.
Do, however, check out its beautiful trailer!
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