[Book Review] Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

SYNOPSIS:

Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.

Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.

When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, Beecham will allow her to continue her medical career. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books―she’ll need corpses to study.

Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living.

But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets, and the dreaded Roman Fever, which wiped out thousands a few years ago, is back with a vengeance. Nobody important cares―until Hazel.

Now, Hazel and Jack must work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.

GENRE: YA Fantasy / Historical Fiction / Mystery

PUBLISHED: January 18, 2022

RECEPTION: Mixed-Positive (4.2 on Amazon and 3.84 on Goodreads)

PURCHASE: Available on amazon.ca, amazon.com, and in most major bookstores.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dana Schwartz is an American best-selling author, screenwriter, journalist, and podcast host. She is the author of five books (The White Man’s Guide to White Male Writers of the Western Canon, And We’re off, Choose Your Own Disaster, Anatomy: A Love Story, and Immortality: A Love Story) to date, and her books have been published in over 20 countries around the world and translated into more than a dozen languages. She is the writer and host of the podcast Noble Blood, hosted on iHeartMedia, where she explores the darker (and lesser known) sides of royals from around the world (and throughout history).

Dana lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their cats, Eddie and Beetlejuice, and has written for publications such as Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. You can learn more about Dana Schwartz on her website: https://dana-schwartz.com/about

Review:

I was first introduced to Dana Schwartz through her podcast, Noble Blood. I enjoyed her well written, well researched exploration of royalty and was particularly fond of the fact her writing and research focused not only on monarchies from within Europe, but explored other cultures from around the world. Her writing for her podcast does not shy away from more controversial topics, ensures it includes necessary warnings for those with sensitivities to specific subjects, and her research is equally as detailed (keeping in mind some information is unavailable in the modern day) regardless of the origins of the episode’s subject. This well-rounded, diverse, and detailed approach to interesting subject matter were what lead me to exploring her other works and, ultimately, purchasing and reading Anatomy: A Love Story, the first in the Anatomy Duology, a book described by author Neil Gaiman as “Irreverent, intelligent and smart.”

The story, set in 19th century Scotland, begins by introducing the audience to the concept of “resurrection men”; individuals who dig up corpses of the recently deceased and sell them to medical professionals and anatomists. It is in this short, six-page prologue that we learn the risks surrounding this profession, and get a brief hint into subject matter that become relevant later in the story. All in all, the prologue does not overstay its welcome, gives enough detail that, as the threads become available to our main character, the audience can start to put a few of the pieces together, and provides context and relevant information that we need to know later in the story, helping to avoid exposition when the subject comes up again later.

It is then we get into the meat of the story, meeting our main character, a 16-year-old girl by the name of Hazel Sinnet who is somewhat isolated thanks to her upper-class lifestyle, her mother still mourning her dead older brother, and her kid brother behaving like a spoiled and irritating heir to the family name. By virtue of this upbringing, Hazel has had her life planned out for her; she is to marry her cousin and become the Lady Almont, an act is described as her best option as no other men will “put up with her quirks”. We learn, largely through Hazel herself, that these quirks are her love of medicine and her desire to become a female surgeon (how scandalous!). In order to pursue her dreams, she dresses in her dead brother’s clothes and signs herself up for lessons from the great Doctor Beecham, grandson of the author who wrote her favourite medical text, all with the goal of taking the Physician’s Exam.

It is through her journey to taking the Physician’s Exam that she meets a young resurrection man by the name of Jack Currer, and her life begins to change as romance blossoms.

Anatomy: A Love Story is, in my opinion, a well written story. It carefully balances the strange and fantastical with realistic research to create a captivating story with characters you cannot help but love, hate, and feel suspicious of all at the same time. It is gory at moments, its dark take on medicine in the 19th century is fairly accurate (aside from more fantastical elements), and it was difficult to put down once I had started reading. I absolutely had to know what was going to happen next. The plot is fast paced, but every aspect has a purpose, and it does not leave the audience feeling rushed or as if there was not enough detail. Interactions with minor characters serve to enhance the characterisation of main characters, and it does not feel as if there are too many or that the story is claustrophobic.

Where the story falls short, though it will be interesting to see how it is explored in the sequel (Immortality: A Love Story – published February 28, 2023), was the twist at the end. While there were hints of it throughout the story, it felt as if it was a little unrealistic with the more realistic approach the setting had taken throughout the first two acts of the story. Had the story been set up to be more fantastical, the ending might not have felt so out of place. However, I do not think it was so outrageous that it ruined the story (as some reviews have suggested). With that in mind, I do believe it is important for those going into the story to keep in mind that this is a love story and not a romance. “Love story” and “romance” are not the same and those who go in expecting a Young Adult romance story will be disappointed as the story focuses on the slow development of love between the main love interests, and less on those tropes that one might expect from a typical romance.

Reviewer Nilufer Ozmekik summed up the story well in their review posted to the Goodreads website on August 23, 2023: “Alienist meets Frankenstein with Scottish romance vibes … forbidden kisses at the graveyard! … Quirky, disturbing but also surprising, stimulating, intelligent! A great concoction for gothic thriller lovers who adore tough, bold, smart heroines!”

RATING: 4 Stars

Image credited to the Barnes and Noble USA website.