I liked this book very much, but I also wanted to love this book and I didn't and that was frustrating. I love 19th century speculative fiction, I teach Frankenstein often to my undergrads (and the Frankenstein bits were possibly my favorites), and I completely appreciate what Goss is doing here. Her premise is glorious. Her execution falters slightly. Partially, that's because I found the narrative choice to have the characters interject their comments into the manuscript annoying. I get what Goss was going for and I appreciate it as a kind of meta-comment about narrative and truth telling, but it interrupted the narrative's capacity to enchant me and I felt distant from it. It also hit the uncanny valley of 19th century style for me: close enough that it sometimes felt right, but then someone would say something that felt off and suddenly everything looked wrong. Is there an uncanny valley for language even?
I'm hoping the second book is slightly different and Goss, moving on from her debut novel, has a slightly surer voice and pacing to the narrative.