The Mimicking of Known Successes

Book Club for November. I did not like this book, I thought it was boring and slow as molasses. This should have been a Novella.

Humanity wrecks Earth and decides to live on platforms around a moon of Jupiter (or something), we follow Mossa and her ex-girlfriend (whose name I can't remember, and she's kind of the main character) as they try to solve the mystery of a dead or disappeared scholar.

This wants to be Holmes & Watson so fucking bad but it's such a shoddy interpretation. If I don't have a chance at solving the mystery by the halfway point, you've done it wrong. Period. Not that I was even trying to solve it by then because the “sexual tension,” if you can even call it that, is basically what dominates the early portions of this book. The romance subplot was at the border between overdone or underdone; a little more and it would have been compelling, and a little less and this would have been a proper mystery book.

I vividly recall putting this down maybe 20 pages in and thinking, “I bet Mossa wears a silly hat”. Then I glanced at the cover.

The setting was novel if maybe a little blurry on purpose. It's gaslamps and mist, it's on Jupiter, but this is just Baker Street. This book is trying to be cozy, but I didn't find a cold and foggy setting super cozy. The prose was blah, I've been spoiled lately and this read as if a high school student wrote it. Actually, it read like everyone was doing their best to talk like David Attenborough and I mean that in the least flattering way.

The Audiobook wasn't Paul Giamatti that's for sure, Lindsey Dorcus tries her best but it wasn't an enjoyable listen.

TL;DR: Sherlock Holmes but female, on Jupiter, with none of the charm or the fun.