Corpse & Crown by Alisa Kwitney

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

I'll start this by saying I completely missed that this was the second book in a series when I requested it. That being said, it was still very easy to figure out what was going on. Corpse & Crown by Alisa Kwitney is a YA historical fiction blended with sci-fi (with a little bit of a retelling thrown in!) that is definitely different from anything on the market today.

It's the Victorian era in England, and Aggie is training to be a nurse. The hospital where she is completing her studies is controversial due to its research in Bio-Mechanicals: human robot hybrids. The hospital becomes aflutter when the Kaiser plans a visit hoping to pit his bio-mechanical soldier against British technology, but thus far nothing they have produced has been successful enough to face the challenge. Aggie doesn't like the focus placed on this research, and would instead rather help the average patients that walked through the door. But she gets trapped in the Bio-Mechanical research, like it or not, and soon discovers things she never would have imagined.

I liked the story fine, but nothing special jumped out to me. As unique as this was, I just didn't feel any attachment to the book or the characters. Between the sci-fi elements, the historical fiction setting, and the Oliver Twist retelling, I honestly thought this book was trying to do to too much. Two of these elements combined might have been more successful rather than trying to squeeze in all three. 

There were too many story lines to follow and too many points of view for my liking. I kept losing track of who each chapter was about, and with so many characters to care about I ended up not really caring about any of them at all. I don't think reading the first book would have made a difference for me in these opinions, as my struggles were more with the writing style and too much content, rather than not understanding the back story. This was one of those books that I couldn't wait to get through so I could read something else.

I will absolutely give credit where credit is due however, and I thought the world building in this book was phenomenal. I also appreciated Kwitney's inventiveness and creativity, even if it didn't quite hit it out of the park for me. All this being said, I do actually want to give the first book, Cadaver & Queen, a shot if I can fit it into my reading schedule, as I did like the overall premise and this may just be a case of "second book in a series slump."

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Thank you to Inkyard Press for an advanced copy of this read! Corpse & Crown by Alisa Kwitney is out now!