A couple weeks ago, I read The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. This book had such a cool concept, and a great title, and I really, really wanted to love it. Unfortunately, there were a few things that didn’t quite pull together, and it didn’t work as well for me as I wanted.
The book starts with our protagonist waking up in a forest with no memories. He barely has time to orient himself when he witnesses a murder. He stumbles out of the woods and finds an old manor, where he is apparently been staying because he’s been invited to a homecoming party for Evelyn Hardcastle, the daughter of the wealthy family. (No, the dead woman in the woods is not Evelyn Hardcastle.) As we progress through the book, we learn that our protagonist is trapped in some kind of game, masterminded by this really creepy guy called the plague doctor. Our protagonist will live the same day eight times, each time in the body of another guest of the party. His goal is to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle which will occur at 11:00 PM. If he fails to solve the murder, all his memories will be wiped and he will start again. And there are others like him in the manor house, trying to solve the murder. The first player to solve the murder will be released.
See? Really cool concept, right?
So we follow our protagonist—his name turns out to be Aidan—through the eight days as he gains allies, discovers enemies, tries over and over again to just prevent Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder, gets killed quite a few times himself, and investigates Evelyn’s murder. This was a really fast book, and as I’ve already said, I loved the concept. Stuart Turton also had this writing style that personified everything, and it was really cool, and I liked it a lot.
Now to dive into the problems I have with the book. No spoilers, I promise.
First, each of Aidan’s hosts has both advantages and disadvantages. Some are intelligent but not very physically capable. Some are really fit and great for running around the manor, but they have poor impulse control or they’re violent. And as Aidan progresses through the eight days, his hosts’ natural personalities become harder to control. This is all well and good. But one of his hosts (I think it’s the third or fourth), is a person of size, and the fat shaming in the book at this point is really egregious. I understand the need for some physical description, and Aidan is bound to notice some things more in a body type he’s never experienced before. I also understand the point that this character can’t get around as quickly as some of Aidan’s other hosts. This host turns out to be the smartest of them all, though, and I kind of feel like the author was trying to avoid the fat shaming criticism by giving the host a good quality. But the problem is the descriptions themselves. Every time the character does anything it’s described in great detail, and the tone of and word choice in the description is disgusted. Yes, this character might be smart, but the predominant aspect of his character that we’re meant to walk away with is that he’s grossly fat. And this was not okay with me.
Next, the mystery in this book was really complicated, and there were a lot of characters, and a lot of these characters had very similar names. Like there’s a Harper and a Carver and a Carter, and then there’s a Darby and a Daniel and a Doctor Dicky and a Donald (I think?). It got confusing, to say the least. Now I admit I don’t read a lot of mysteries, but when I do, I like to be able to attempt to solve them on my own. And when we reach the ending, I like to be able to look back and say “ah, I see how this works.” I couldn’t do that with this book. We just followed Aidan as he solved the mystery, and then he explained it to us, and even with his explanation I don’t know how he figured it out. This left me feeling kind of disappointed.
Finally, it’s implied throughout the book that Aidan has been trying to solve Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder for years and has been through these eight days many, many times. And each time, even though he loses his memories when it’s over, he grows as a character. It is revealed at the end what the point of the game is, and I actually think it’s a really cool concept. The problem is all of Aidan’s, and everyone else’s, character development happened before the book started, and we’re just seeing the end point, rather than a complete arc. We can’t appreciate how Aidan has grown and changed over the course of the book, because when the book starts he has pretty much finished his growing and changing and now he’s just putting the pieces together.
For me, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle had a really cool concept some great writing and a pretty solid plot. But the ending really didn’t work for me, and that dragged the rest of the book down.
I know a lot of people really like this book, so as always take my thoughts with a grain of salt. You know the kinds of books you like to read. If you give it a try I’d love to know what you think, and if you’ve already read it, do you agree with me? Or do I just not understand mysteries?