At 40% in, I’d hoped the flaws in the opening of this book would have been addressed, or at least other positives about the story would overshadow them. This did not happen. 

One issue is that Collins falls into the age-old problem of characters writing absolutely unrealistic diary entries. No single diary entry ever written on Earth has transcribed such long conversations so exactly. There is no way Sophia (or anyone without a memory disorder) would be able to remember pages of exact dialogue, especially James's tedious scientific diatribes, yet apparently, she can. Authors really need to stop putting long stretches of dialogue in diary entries, it makes no fucking sense and completely breaks the immersion of the story. 

Also, all of the men are misogynistic arseholes who wouldn't even know how to pick up a child, let alone deign to look after one themselves. And God forbid they think of a woman as a real person. And all the British women are brainwashed idiots with no ambitions other than being the perfect wife. Yes, that was more the norm at the time, but not everybody was the exact same cookie cutter person. Where's the nuance?!
 
Henry is fucking annoying. His relationship with Edward is so fucking weird. 

And I didn’t even make it to where I assume Sophia and Hira form a romantic/sexual relationship, but the build-up is really weird because Sophia is basically a child in a woman’s body. 

Also, the cover, though beautiful, doesn’t make sense any sense?? The silk stops people from hearing, not people from speaking. So why are their mouths ripped away? And if instead it’s meant to be pointing out that people don’t have a voice, why the fuck include a man?? All of the men Collins cares about in this book (i.e. anyone with money) have their voices heard loud and clear. 

A disappointing book I don’t have the time for. Next!