Review: Anatomy

Title: Anatomy

Author: Dana Schwartz

Publisher: 25th January 2022 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 335 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre: young adult, mystery, gothic, historical fiction

My Rating: 4 cups

Synopsis:

A gothic tale full of mystery and romance about a willful female surgeon, a resurrection man who sells bodies for a living, and the buried secrets they must uncover together.

Edinburgh, 1817. 

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, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect. 

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

But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.

My Thoughts

‘It wasn't anything novel or helpful to anyone. She hadn’t contributed to the world. She had made a frog dance for her own amusement. She had been the dancing frog all along.’

Anatomy takes place in Edinburg in 1817 and centers around a young woman named Hazel who wants more from life than most other girls her age. Hazel wants to be a surgeon. She meets a Resurrectionist - Jack Currer - who makes a living by digging up dead bodies to sell them to universities. What can I say about this book:

• Time to state the obvious, the cover art is extraordinary! Captivating!

• To be fair, I would class this read predominantly as young adult, historical fiction, there is mystery with a touch of gothic, faintly fantasy with a little romance (still …  I will put it out there now - I love Hazel and Jack).

• The final twist … OMG … I did not see it coming.

‘It’s the lesson young girls everywhere were taught their entire lives - don’t be seduced by the men you meet, protect your virtue - until, of course, their entire

lives depended on seduction by the right man. It was an impossible situation, a trick of society as a whole: force women to live at the mercy of whichever man wants them but shame them for anything they might do to get a man to want them.’

This book is easy to read with an ending that, whilst slightly too quick, took me for  quite a ride. Hazel is an incredible lead at a time when girls could not have dreams of their own outside of society’s expectations. Her life was to be all about medicine and assisting those in need. Jack makes a great partner in crime (literally!) and the chemistry between them is there. 

‘Somebody should tell you that you're beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Wednesdays. And at tea time. Someone should tell you you're beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year's, and on the eighth of August, just because.’

The ending … the jury is out for many people. It will certainly leave you shocked and unsure. Maybe somewhat too quickly wrapped up given your investment throughout the book as a whole. Could there be more to come? I don’t think so. Still, I appreciated it. What there is no doubt about is the research Dana has gone into with regards to Edinburgh at the time, the differences in classes and the spectacular insight into the advances of medicine of the age. 

I really enjoyed this book with the last fifty pages having my eyes glued until completion. More historical fiction than fantasy/gothic, more mystery than romance it still gives off the Frankenstein-Mary Shelley vibes. Well written, cover art TDF and I would be pumped if there turned out to be a sequel. 

‘… you realize how thin the line is between everything being all right and everything being ruined forever and you just become suddenly aware that you know nothing.’

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.