Opium and Absinthe
by Lydia Kang
Group Reviews/Comments:
Tedious. Too much detail. The dope thing was like and homage to Sherlock.
I loved the cover art! I liked the setting but the book didn’t hold my attention. Couldn’t match the quotations from Dracula to what was happening in the story. The violence in the final chapter was deeply disturbing.
I liked it. So interesting how opium was so freely given to Tillie and how she slowly became addicted. Very interesting how constrained main characters were.
I liked the drug aspects but I did not like that Tillie really believed that vampires could exist! Why is she so naïve? The connection to Dracula was not done well.
Thoroughly enjoyable. At times terrifying when reading how women were treated by the medical profession, to subdue them. I liked seeing the evolution of Tillie’s character and how life as an upper class woman was privileged and stifling. The mystery could have been stronger, with less about the mythology of vampires. There was a bit too much dragging out the details of the opium addiction. Tillie and Ian have great promise as a duo in a series but looks like this is a stand-alone novel.
The quotations at the beginning of each chapter never connected to the content of the chapter. And it didn’t make sense how Tillie was able to keep escaping home. Also didn’t make sense how Tillie was able to trust Ian after he betrayed her.
I didn’t like this book. So slow! Watching Tillie develop her addiction was hard, and the treatment of women very gut wrenching. The classism and romanticism of poverty was hard to read too. The mystery did keep me guessing.
I found this book to be different than anything I’ve read before. Compelling. Don’t like when investigator uses “self” as bait–that is a trope–but everything else was unique. Did a very good job shining light on addiction, poverty, and women’s status. Comparing addiction to vampirism was very strong.
Boiled my blood to see how restrained Tillie was. Brought up lots of conversation in my family.
Too many details.
