A Study in Charlotte, by Brittany Cavallaro
A Study in Charlotte, by Brittany Cavallaro
I brought her food, but it stayed untouched on the plate no matter how I tried to cajole her into eating. When I caught her taking twenty minutes to eat a single almond, I began wondering if there was some kind of Watsonian guide for the care and keeping of Holmeses.
When I sent my father an email to that effect (subject line I Need Your Help, postscript Still haven’t forgiven you and won’t), he responded that, yes, over the years he’d written down an informal series of suggestions in his journal; he’d do his best to adapt and type them up for me.
When the list arrived the next day, it was twelve pages long, single-spaced.
—A Study in Charlotte, by Brittany Cavallaro
Nutshell: Contemporary Sherlock Holmes story set at a boarding school. Our Sherlock is Charlotte Holmes, our Watson is Jamie Watson; Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were real people, Conan Doyle was Watson’s literary agent; Charlotte and Jamie are great-great-great grandchildren of the original duo.
When a student at their school is murdered, they’re both suspects because they’d had very public run-ins with him. So, of course, they team up to solve the mystery. With me so far?
It has its moments—our first few interactions with Charlotte are reminiscent of Veronica Mars S1, largely because of how prickly and guarded she is, and there’s a thread about the aftermath of sexual assault that’s quite well done (and, actually, now that I think about it, also reminiscent of Veronica Mars S1)—but overall, this one really just didn’t work for me.
Some of that can be chalked up to Jamie’s narration, which is all-in on the gender stereotyping and is just STEEPED in Charlotte’s Not Like Other Girls-ness; some of that can be chalked up to Charlotte herself, who surprisingly buys into the same sort of gender stereotyping that Jamie does, in exactly the sort of way that I WOULDN’T have expected (“For a boy, you are massively melodramatic.“ (64)).
More examples:
“Unlike the room Tom and I shared, which could’ve won awards for its messiness, theirs was as neat and orderly as only a girls’ dorm room could be.” (82)
There’s a whole long passage in which Jamie explains how Charlotte has basically ruined him for all other girls and now when he thinks back on the girls he used to crush on, they all blend together into this generic amalgam of Not Charlotte. It’s probably there to show how much he likes her, etc., etc., etc., but was still gross.
Ditto the scene where Charlotte dresses up like “textbook jailbait“ and it feels like she and Jamie don’t just underestimate girls who look like that, they’re actively contemptuous of them? Charlotte is using the disguise to get information out of dudes, sure, but it really felt to me like it was the Knee Sock Girls that the scene was dunking on. Which made me genuinely sad.
“I bent to lace a cleat so he couldn’t see my face. I wasn’t sure I could pull that one off: I wore cable-knit jumpers and read Vonnegut novels and had a girl for a best friend. I was about as likely to build up giant biceps as to build a colony on the moon.” (184)
“I wished, for the first time, that I’d done something with my years at Highcombe other than read novels and swoon over icy blond princesses who’d never touch anything harder than pot.“ (248)
To be fair, their ongoing dismissiveness about stereotypical sorority girls ends up being a plot point, so it’s there for a reason, and they do learn a lesson there. Also, Charlotte’s roommate is wonderful AND a Bubbly Girly Girl, and Jamie develops an appreciation for her over the course of the book. But the rest of the stereotyping remains.
Who knows, though—I feel like I remember this one being quite well-received, so your mileage may vary?
Note: There’s a usage of ‘spirit animal’ on page 230. But this edition is from 2017, so that might not be there in newer editions.