Review: The Essex Serpent

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I borrowed this book from my brother-in-law, Danny. I unfortunately don't remember what he told me about the book and why he was lending it to me. I may update this later if he reminds me.

This was an unexpectedly pleasant read! It's definitely a slow start, and I can't say I particularly like any of the characters, but I enjoyed the novelization of natural history in the late 19th century, even if it was not the major force of this book. Hooray for name-dropping Lyell and Darwin! It made me speculate how our scientific knowledge today will serve as a backdrop for the fiction of some future day a hundred-something years from now.

I didn't think I particularly favored Victorian England as a setting, but I enjoyed it here. I might be discovering a bias with this book now that I think about it, as I also liked Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White and Michael Cox's The Meaning of Night. Something to explore...

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