Review: A Study in Charlotte

A Study In Charlotte
AUTHOR:  Brittany Cavallaro
SERIES: Charlotte Holmes #1
PAGES: 321 Pages 
PUBLISHER: Katherine Tegen Books
RELEASE DATE: March 1st, 2016

SUMMARY:

The last thing Jamie Watson wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that's not the only complication: Sherringfodr is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective's great-great-great-granddaughter, who has inherited not only Sherlock's genius, but also his volatile temperament. From everything Jamie has heard about Charlotte, it seems safer to admire her from afar. 

From the moment they meet, there's a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else. But when a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances, ripped straight from the most terrifying of the serlock Holmes stories, Jamie can no longer afford to keep his distance. Jamie and Charlotte are being framed for murder, and only Charlotte can clear their names. But danger is mounting and nowhere is safe-- and the only people they can trust are each other.

Follow Watson and Holmes on their journey with a little twist!

    Jamie Watson is very disappointed when he receives a scholarship for Rugby and is forced by his mom to attend Sherringford, a prep school in Connecticut.  There is just one more obstacle for him to overcome, Charlotte Holmes also goes there. Leaving it up to fate, he decides to keep his distance from her. However, he admires her from a far and keeps his eye on her. When they finally meet, it’s instant friendship, well after some bumps along the way haha. In the end, they are in this together because they are being framed for murder! Will they ever figure it out or will they be charged for the crime?

 I’ve heard so many good things about this book the past couple weeks and recently even more so. The hype on this book is insane! I really, really wanted to love this book to pieces, I just found so many things wrong with it when there are some really amazing mysteries I’ve read in the past including Sherlock Holmes.  So I guess I’ll start off with the things that I didn’t really like about this book and end on a positive note of what I did like.

 The first thing I noticed right off the bat, 3 pages in, was the diction the author chose. Now I do not know if this was just me, but I found it a little confusing and hard to adjust to the first two or so chapters. In the very first chapter she introduces six different people without giving them much detail to support them. Which for me, was really confusing trying to remember these characters and I had to keep back tracking to see which one was which. Maybe that was just me and I thought okay, it’ll get better and it did for the most part, but I have to say for a mystery it really lacked that, “wow,” factor.

This novel was very predictable when it came to who had committed the crime. Which for me, was a letdown because......

 I like when a mystery keeps me on the edge of my seat and the ending is something reader doesn’t see coming and this one just didn’t do that for me. I kept waiting for there to be something big and shocking, but it just never came.  I also noticed that this book lacked the emotional impact I wanted it to have at the end. At the end, there is a scene and it’s a scene where I should’ve been over the moon happy and in awe, but I wasn’t… I feel like that scene should have had such an emotional impact because it was the ending of the story! Everything is revealed some other things happened and going back to the wow factor there was no excitement at what I had just read. Honestly, I feel so disappointed that It didn’t have that emotional impact. I had such high hopes for this book and it just didn’t live up to it for me.  

                However, enough of the bad stuff, I always feel so bad for pointing out the things I didn’t like about a book! But I always tell you guys the truth about how I felt.  So on the bright side, here’s some things I did like about this novel. I liked the characters their selves, I love Jamie’s attitude. I mean, how could I not? He’s a Watson! I love that as a reader I am able to connect so much with him. He literally is me when watching or reading Sherlock Holmes – he is always one step behind Sherlock, but he makes deductions and inferences that we as a reader notice too. Sometimes even before Sherlock points it out and I love it! I also really loved Charlotte, it’s a different spin on a classic tail because she’s a girl and there is just something so nice about a fresh new twist.

 It was so fun to watch these two run around and try to figure it out, even though it is really predictable. I read till the end just to confirm the outcome I had inferred, but I did like their growing interactions and seeing them develop such a cute friendship as the outcome. I also have to mention the detective in this novel. He was actually a smart guy and stayed on Charlotte’s level – as in he was always one step ahead of her. Which, was really interesting to see because normally in mysteries, the detectives are kind of dull, so that was pretty refreshing to see that as well! I also liked that the author used old Sherlock Holmes tails and threw them in there in some kind of way to bring back that classic feel.

So I am going to wrap this up saying I gave it a 3 stars purely because I liked the idea of this novel a lot, I also liked the nice unique things that the author threw in there, but for the most part this novel just had somethings missing for me.

I’d say this is defiantly for fans of Sherlock Holmes and Watson!

If you like mysteries I’d say go for it, you might have a different outcome then me!