I have finally read this book. Granted, I listened to the audio book while I was crafting, but it still counts! It was a pretty good read. Even though I hadn't read the book before I was familiar with the story because it has shown up a lot in other books I have read in the past few years. Yeah, it was basically what I expected it to be. Interesting, creepy, and just plain weird.

Well. That was a whole lot better than I expected.

I can't believe I loved this as much as I did. There is only one thing that brought this down from five stars to four (it will be explained further in this review), and I still feel like maybe I should give this 4.5. But I've been doing a lot of .5 star reviews lately so... here we are, I guess.

OK, so, what did I like about this book?




1) SETTING.

The dirty, 19th-century-London setting in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reminisces both the dreariness of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the intrigue of an Agatha Christie novel. Anyone who knows me knows that setting will make or break a book for me. And trust me when I say it made this one.

2) MYSTERY.

Y'all, I thought I knew what was going on. Truly, I did.

Spoiler

I thought it was something to do with blackmail or money... in case you're curious.

And because of what I thought it was, I wasn't hooked right away. But as I slowly started to realize it was something different than I'd expected, I was at the edge of my seat just waiting to fugure it out. And that ending really had me... I didn't expect anything quite so dark or shaking from this novel at all. (That's a good thing.)

3) FREAKING PACING.

This book was almost the perfect length. There was a slow, dark feeling to it (see also: SETTING) that made the whole book so perfectly timed. There was always this sense that something big was about to happen. Anytime it did, it was done so that it left you wanting more. Every plot point was hit at the right moment, so that I was never bored, but it also never felt too fast. I loved it.

SO WHY ONLY 4.5?

Somehow, though I loved the pacing and the mystery so much, I could have done with a much shorter reveal. It was so long, in fact, that I found it really difficult to make it through that final chapter. It could have easily been half of that length, and the explanation still would have been sufficient enough, while leaving just a little bit up to the imagination.

This should not, of course, deter anyone from reading, but it is something to be mindful of going in.

FINAL THOUGHTS.

R.L. Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a masterpiece of a mystery. Complete with setting, intrigue, and structure, this book is perfect for fans of Mary Shelley, Agatha Christie, and A.C. Doyle.

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For anyone who's curious, here's a link to the magnificent audiobook I used for this read. (Seriously, this audio is probably half the reason I loved this book so much.) Thank you, Steven Garnett, for the lovely experience reading this book.

—Elliana Maselli
Thursday, April 15, 2021
5:48PM

I knew this story, of course. It's one of those stories that has so seeped into popular culture that you know it in many forms even if you've never read the original. In fact, I wasn't sure if I had read the original at some point or not.

I picked up the audiobook as read by Richard Armitage. It's wonderful. One of those perfect marriages of story and voice that sometimes make an audiobook even more enjoyable than a paper book.

After reading it, I am pretty sure that I had not actually read it before.

The telling is different than any of the iterations onscreen or stage I have seen. I wish I could have read it without knowing the story, in fact. The artistry would be more striking if it could have been a surprise. Even knowing what the mystery was all about and what the reveal would be when it came, I found it wonderfully atmospheric.

The story is told by Mr. Utterson, Dr. Jekyll's friend and lawyer, a proper Victorian gentleman, all honor and crisp uprightness. Utterson is clueless as to what is actually going on, and for the entire story thinks that Dr. Jekyll is being blackmailed, threatened or otherwise coerced by another man altogether, the heinous and horrible Mr. Hyde.

There's this wonderful section when Dr. Jekyll's "man" sends for Mr. Utterson, a step which is highly unusual in and of itself, as it breaks privacy and brings a third party into what might be a shameful situation. The poor manservant is convinced that his master is dead and that Mr. Hyde is lurking in the laboratory instead, which is, in a way, exactly what has happened.

The reveal about what has actually been going on doesn't come until the very end of the book and comes in the form of a letter from Dr. Jekyll himself, detailing the nature of his experiments and how it all gone horribly awry. This part hits on many of my favorite themes (also in works like The Island of Dr. Moreau, Frankenstein, and The Picture of Dorian Gray): the mind/body divide, a desire to control something that cannot be controlled, shame, exultation. Like all mad scientists, Dr. Jekyll did not start out intending harm and his aims seem reasonable at first.

The story is perfect in its simplicity. It is not unnecessarily crowded with minor characters or too much detail about the experiments. Instead, it's all about capturing the feelings. This one is staying on a list of favorites for sure.

3.5 Stars