Anatomy: A Love Story

Dana Schwartz

Jan 2022 · The Anatomy Duology Book 1 · Sold by Wednesday Books

About this ebook

*INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
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*A REESE'S YA BOOK CLUB PICK*

"Schwartz's magical novel is at once gripping and tender, and the intricate plot is engrossing as the reader tries to solve the mystery. She doesn't miss a beat in either the characterization or action, scattering clues with a delicate, precise hand. This is, in the end, the story of the anatomy of the human heart." - Booklist (starred review)

Dana Schwartz’s Anatomy: A Love Story is a gothic tale full of mystery and romance.

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, Beecham will allow her to continue her medical career. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books—she’ll need corpses to study.

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

But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets, and the dreaded Roman Fever, which wiped out thousands a few years ago, is back with a vengeance. Nobody important cares—until Hazel.

Now, Hazel and Jack must work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.

Ratings and reviews

POV: Third-person, Omniscient Time and Location: 1800s, Edinburgh Hazel Sinnett is an aspiring surgeon or a woman of science if society will allow her. Her interest lies in surgical dissection and exploration of the human anatomy. Jack Currer is a resurrection man (a "body snatcher" or a person who secretly exhumes dead bodies to sell them) who bumps into Hazel in one of his business dealings. With an outbreak with no known cure and unexplained deaths, Hazel and Jack seem to have stumbled to the answers that they don't know will change them forever. The book focuses on the pursuit of knowledge - namely, the human anatomy and the mystery of the disappearances around Edinburgh. The love aspect is only a far third, though a bit misleading to assume it's the focal point - based on the title. I want to point out that the "love" theme is not the main focus versus the first. Given this is for a YA audience, the love scenes are more conservative based on the era and instead dive into the emotional turmoil and development than the physical. The human body is explored, researched, and well written. The author writes the beautiful and ugly side science, progress, power, and money. The book talks about the new advances and "improvements" in science that are wonderful but come at a high trade-off. Eye-opening and hopeful to some, but most cruel when greed comes in. It reminds us that evolution has a price. This pursuit affects everyone and translates to a more significant societal impact of corruption and "framing." There is much emphasis on the disparity between the superior versus sub-par gender, AND "haves" and "have-nots" are evident and accurate to the time. It worked me up, but I appreciate the author's purpose in stressing those and the main characters' frustrations. I love how the author developed each character effectively and kept the story's pace dynamic with a few historical explanations randomly placed. The characters were relatable and made me feel for them with each "hard decision" they had to make in the dark and mysterious situation they faced. I love Hazel! She is way ahead of her time, and she was determined to follow her path in the medical field. The book showed how she approached each hurdle and made the most of her situation. The biggest surprise for me is the ending. It stumped, shooked, and kept me up with overanalyzing everything in the book. I even went back to re-read a few chapters before the end. I don't know how I feel about how things ended. I am torn - should I be happy or sad with how things turned out? I do not know. One part of me was like, "WOW...that was a total 360-degrees," while another side was "OH NO, it cannot be this" on the love story. Even with the above comment, it is not to say that I did not enjoy the book. I still rated the book high because I enjoyed the book as a whole - happily devouring the in-depth relationship building, world-building, and character development aspects of it. I did like the Epilogue that shrouded the ending with even more mystery, even if it made me sad. Overall, Anatomy: A Love Story is a book of a revolutionary and bright heroine, Hazel, who goes off into a higher purpose than initially seen. The book feels like an ode to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at the start, but it later progresses into something higher and a category of its own on storytelling. She discovers her passion and confidence through science and solves one of the biggest conspiracies of the time. It is full of mystery and suspense at each turn, even if we get both protagonists' POVs. The writing is witty, descriptive, and captivating, with some British slang that is easy to decipher. The story explores the price of knowledge and the ugly side of pursuing progress. The stereotypical connotations of women in society stand out and balance with a few surprising twists that make it ingeniously captivating.

Schwartz sets up the tropes of court drama during the Napoleanic War and deftly subverts them. This is a story about the pursuit of truth, told with both a sense of humor and empathy for the victims of cruelty. I wish I had this novel when I was 15.

I love this book

About the author

Dana Schwartz is a television writer and the creator of the number-one charting history podcast Noble Blood. As a journalist and critic, Dana has written for Entertainment Weekly, Marie Claire, Glamour, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair and more. She lives in Los Angeles with her fiancé, and their cats Eddie and Beetlejuice. Her books include Choose Your Own Disaster, The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers of the Western Canon, and Anatomy: A Love Story.