A Study in Charlotte is a cute teen Sherlock Holmes retelling. The book felt like a combination of Heist Society by Ali Carter and Nancy Drew. The book is your essential murder mystery with a twist ending the reader cannot seeing coming. I'm excited to see where the relationship between Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Waston develops next. However, I did have some problems with the book.

The author never explains what grades either character is in or that Holmes and Watson are in high school. I spent the first several chapters thinking both of these characters were in college. While I enjoyed reading this book as an adult, it's written for teenagers. I think my biggest problem with the book is the writing style felt geared towards the 12-14 year age range, but the plot content felt geared towards 16+. The author includes topics of; heavy drug use and sexual assault, but the storyline depth and character relationships felt surface level. This made the character's ages confusing, because, in some aspects, they felt 14, and in others, they felt 18 or 19. Overall, I think the book is geared towards older teens, but some will be uninterested in the lack of a complex storyline.

The book also has little to no diversity with no BIPOC or LGBT+ characters.

I give the books 3.5 stars, and I plan on reading the next book in the series, but will probably be getting them from the library