My Dear Henry by Kalynn Bayron

e-Audio, 07:49:27
Narrated by: Clifford Samuel
Release Date: March 7, 2023
Published by: Macmillan Audio
Read from: February 19-20, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: Netgalley (I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)

TW: Homophobia, Racism, Bullying, Death, Blood, Outing, Classism, Toxic Family Members, Gaslighting
For Readers Interested In: YA, LGBTQ+, Mystery, Classic Retelling, Historical

     In this gothic YA remix of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, a teen boy tries to discover the reason behind his best friend’s disappearance—and the arrival of a mysterious and magnetic stranger—in misty Victorian London.
     London, 1885. Gabriel Utterson, a 17-year-old law clerk, has returned to London for the first time since his life— and that of his dearest friend, Henry Jekyll—was derailed by a scandal that led to his and Henry’s expuslion from the London Medical School. Whispers about the true nature of Gabriel and Henry’s relationship have followed the boys for two years, and now Gabriel has a chance to start again.
     But Gabriel doesn’t want to move on, not without Henry. His friend has become distant and cold since the disastrous events of the prior spring, and now his letters have stopped altogether. Desperate to discover what’s become of him, Gabriel takes to watching the Jekyll house.
     In doing so, Gabriel meets Hyde, a a strangely familiar young man with white hair and a magnetic charisma. He claims to be friends with Henry, and Gabriel can’t help but begin to grow jealous at their apparent closeness, especially as Henry continues to act like Gabriel means nothing to him.
     But the secret behind Henry’s apathy is only the first part of a deeper mystery that has begun to coalesce. Monsters of all kinds prowl within the London fog—and not all of them are out for blood…

*MY THOUGHTS*

These remixes are saving my views on the classics. I read Dr. Jekyll when I was in middle school. I was interested in sci-fi back then and my mom gave me it. I ended up liking it, but it wasn’t something I would read again unless I had to. But this time I wanted to give it a try because it’s a remix. And sure enough, it gave me a whole new respect for the story.

So for what worked for me. I LOVED the setting. Bayron has a way of making the setting feel so legit. I felt the fog like I was on London or something. She mentioned the way the cobblestones felt under their feet and the way they sounded when the person was running on them. It made me feel as if I was right there. And as someone who travels from the books she reads (remember why my blog is named this?) this was right up my alley. It made the book a little more mysterious too.

I did think this story was going to be a slog for me to get through tho. I am not a huge fan of the original because it was kinda confusing. When I read it in Middle school it was in one of those Illustrated Classics. (Am I the only one who read those?) And I remember reading it and watching a documentary and it scared the bee-jebs out of me. But Bayron made this story her own and I actually really enjoyed it.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THIS PARAGRAPH. I also liked the twist, although it made me cry. TW/CW Not gonna lie, the way his dad forced the serum on him and what it did, it really felt like the dad’s version of conv/ersion ther/apy. Like that would be the way he was trying to do it back then. And it made me sad and mad so the tears fell. It didn’t make me stop liking it, but it did make me waffle on my rating. In the end, I settled on not changing anything because I felt like anything that made me cry was something that really pulled at my emotions.

The narrator was weird tho. I liked him, but his voice was too calming? I don’t know how else to say it. I had to speed him up, but then I saw that wouldn’t work for me. So I slowed it down and then he put me to sleep. (I think that was my ADHD tho. Anything under 1.5 won’t do it for me lol) But everything else, like his tone and the inflections and stuff were fine.

This book was so good it made me break my book buying ban. (Don’t tell my husband I admitted to that lol) All of these classics are so good! I really hope there’s a lot more of these to come. I love seeing all the different ways they’ve been changed.

Overall, I give this