Things in Jars: A Novel
By: Jess Kidd / Narrated By: Jacqueline Milne
Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
What I’m having the absolute joy to learn? Jess Kidd: Always a FAVE!
Not that many authors I know can do it, and offhand? Gosh, I can only bring to mind Jess Walter.
What I’m speaking of is, how many writers do you know who can craft inCREdibly unique stories, novel after novel? Jess Walter (Hmmm, maybe ya gotta be named Jess?!) seems to completely write a book, then take some time, then he comes out with something entirely different. Shamelessly too; I’ve read sooo many reviews of his books that whiiiiiine: “But this was NOTHING like Beautiful Ruins!!!”
And ain’t it AWEsome?!
But with Jess Kidd you just KNOW: Each journey out with her is going to provide something TRULY magical, a weird twisted something or other that will be unsettling -AND- brilliantly written.
Bridie Devine, a rough and tumble young woman who hails from impoverished Ireland; who, as an orphaned little lass learned to read dead bodies, is called in to investigate the strange appearance of a dead woman in a crypt. Whilst there, whilst sucking on her special Bronchial Blend tamped into her pipe, she makes an unsettling discovery (As tho’ the screaming rictus on the dead woman’s face weren’t bad enough…): The woman is holding a dead baby within her arms. It’s a gruesome little thing, what with its sharp little needle-like teeth and worse? Bridie thought the wee bairn was suckling upon its mum’s finger, but… it’s actually clamped down, biting hard.
Bridie is captivated, but NEVER is she shocked. Not even as she grudgingly chats with Ruby Doyle, a ghost who’s covered in whimsical (And writhing!) tattoos, and who in life was quite a showy boxer. Bridie has seen a lot, and the story alternates between 1863 and 1843, sloooowly making us aware of just how many horrors Bridie has seen, has survived. How she’s gotten stronger and has evolved, but Oy! how she does have terrors and secrets from her past. And one that she'd thought was dead?
Alive and well. And wielding a doctor’s knives. Soooo NOT good.
The bodies from the crypt go missing; a really really reeeeeally strange little girl named Christabel goes missing; increasingly odd and ominous (Not to mention increeeeasingly psychotic) characters show up. Beautiful! What’s not to love? How is one NOT to stay utterly hooked to the story?
Uhm, apparently it’s possible, but most of the NAY Reviews I came across simply said that it was unbelievable or that it was hard to keep track of events. Uhm (Again!), you’re expected to PAY ATTENTION, folks! Just Listen (And with Jacqueline Milne’s truly stuPENdous narration, how can you be anything less than captivated?), and as this is Jess Kidd we’re talking about here: Don’t even atTEMpt to Multitask!!! (No, really: Over on Audible, one listener lamented that she lost key components of the story whilst trying to do other things… Yeesh!).
Okay, maybe it’s cuz I’m usually nestled under a fuzzy blanket with a fuzzy cat on m’ legs and am thus not doing anything, and other people don’t have that luxury, but seriously. You neeeed to get other things done: Do NOT go for the sumptuous writing of Kidd, not with the interweaving of tales, the positioning of clues, the magical elements that run like golden (Except when they’re sooty and blacker than evil!) threads throughout all her novels.
There are sooo many twists and turns, and even tho’ things are obvious (A Mystery but not a Whodunnit), the writing, the characters, the sense of place, of time, of outright heinously malevolent characters as they devolve into unspeakably vile villains? To die for!
Dunno what it is, but here’s a warning for you as I wrap up this review, as I wrap up this celebration of St. Paddy’s Day 2022. Dude? You wanna multitask? You need to get the laundry folded?
Do NOT go for an Irish writer, esPECially not Jess Kidd.
Just prose too rich and passionately crafted, just characters too rich and passionately crafted.
And oh my gosh: Just the sweetest, most delicious, love story ever crafted.
Tissue? May I have a tissue, please…?
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