Synopsis:
The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets is book three in the Enola Holmes series.
Sherlock Holmes is missing his right hand man, Dr Watson. His much younger sister Enola is hiding from her older Holmes brothers, but knows the bizarre bouquet that arrives at the Watson residence spells death – convolvulus, hawthorn, and white poppies. She dons her most discerning disguise, and seeks the sender.
Review:
The second book in this series saw me warming up slightly, but I’ve well and truly given up on it. I never expected to DNF a book under 200 pages but here we are. My expectations for book three of this series was that it would all finally click together, but I really struggled to get into The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets.
Firstly, I find the language really strange. This series is definitely for children (teens?) but the Victorian style language really upsets the flow of the story. I’ll admit, I’ve always struggled when books use older language, it’s why I don’t read classics, so this could just be a me problem. However, because of this it took me way too long to get through just half of The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets.
Having an entire scene that talks about how being beautiful is the way to get attention and make people like you, because god forbid an ugly woman wants to be your friend, is a terrible message to include in a book for young people.
Also women are just living in hell in this world. I read fiction to escape reality, I don’t need to be reminded of how horrible life used to be for women. Plus every single man in this book, literally all of them (maybe other than Watson), is a horrible sexist pig. When women write characters like this it really makes you wonder if they actually hate women.
As much as I love Dr. Watson, I just didn’t care about the story. I think the mystery of whether or not he went missing would have been more impactful if the book didn’t open by telling you where he is. You don’t find out who kidnapped him, but apparently it’s a bit ridiculous. How Enola keeps figuring out these mysteries is beyond me.
It’s not often I say this but the films are 1000% better than the books. Enola isn’t very likeable in The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets but the films actually made her strong and independent.
Check out Young Creative Press on all socials
You can also check out my StoryGraph here
Like this post? Why not read this one too: The Best Of: Must Read Fantasies #7
[…] Like this post? Why not read this one too: Book Review: The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets by Nancy Springer […]