I have a lot of questions, some pressing, some not pressing, all of them ridiculous, so shall we get started:

1. initially i was very concerned by the concept. it’s nuts, wild. sh adaptations, retelling rarely include sh as a facet of the world. however our holmes and watson exist, they are the first. the allusions are there to harken, to pay tribute to the original stories. i can conceive of a world in which sh stories exist and our characters play detective. i think psych is a pretty okay example of this, though not a direct sh story. NOPE! this book says hey not only is sh a part of our cultural consciousness, but in fact! they were real people. what do you mean it’s weird that character wise all of OUR characters are almost replicas of the originals? shut up.
2. the villain was cartoonish in how evil she is, and backed by an even more cartoonish villain probably revealed more in the sequel, but having her orchestrate charlotte’s rape was too much for me.
3. emotionally, and ...writingly....this book is all over the map for me. clearly written in chunks, rather than being a seamless work

but also like, over all, enjoyable. heartfelt. why is there a mycroft character named MILO? i LIKED it but i think ya is officially too young for me.