"'It's fine,' I said, drawing from the sane, imaginary place in my head, where no one was brutally killed down the hall and my only friend deigned to tell me the barest facts about her life."

Look, I've read (and watched) a lot of Sherlock Holmes retellings, but after finishing the last season of Elementary I had a mighty need. Which this fulfilled nicely — I stayed up until 3am reading even though I should've been studying for finals and I knew perfectly well that I had to get up earlyish the next morning.

This is a delightful variation: as descendants of the famous duo, Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes are wholly believable as modern teenagers trying to live up to the legacies of their respective families. Nods to Arthur Conan Doyle's stories (or John Watson's sotries, as they're presented in this book) are littered throughout — I wouldn't say that Jamie and Charlotte's first case is nearly as convoluted, but it's a fun adventure nonetheless.

I think I blinked and missed the part where Jamie and Charlotte become friends; it feels like I just turned the page and their early infatuation/animosity, respectively, had been sidelined if not forgotten. But other than the awkward transition, I really loved their banter and teamwork, and the way they actually talk about their feelings. Romance does enter into the equation, but 

at this point they're first and foremost friends/partners in crime, and physical intimacy seems to be just a matter of time rather than a "will they/won't they" drawn out for drama

, which I really enjoyed. And so many other nuanced relationships are shown in this book, too, though of course the Holmes/Watson partnership is the big draw.

All that said, this fits pretty comfortably into the genre of YA boarding school mystery. Not a bad thing, but with the major caveat that some of the more serious topics (such as

the Holmes family's, and more specifically Charlotte's, history of addiction and drug abuse; Charlotte being sexually assaulted while under the influence; Jamie's family situation; Jamie's and Charlotte's "out of place" / "in between" feeling from dividing their time between London and Connecticut

) aren't fully explored ... but there are more books in the series, so I'm willing to suspend judgment for now.

content warnings: 

drug abuse & addiction, mentions of sexual assault (while victim is under the influence of drugs), blood, emotional manipulation, mentions of child neglect

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CONVERSION: 12.95 / 15 = 4.5 stars

Prose: 8 / 10
Characters & Relationships: 10 / 10
Emotional Impact: 9 / 10
Development / Flow: 10 / 10
Setting: 9 / 10

Intellectual Engagement: 3 / 5
Originality / Trope Execution: 4 / 5
Rereadability: 4 / 5
Memorability: 4 / 5