Some of you may be wondering: why am I still reading these books when they annoy me so? Well, first of all, the premise is actually really fun. It's making my imagination machine work overtime. Second of all, the tension is actually really good. Third of all, I refuse to read any of those sub-par teen versions of Sherlock Holmes. This is the best option.

But, anyway, despite absolutely hating the premise, this book was enjoyable to me! I've decided to accept that this version of Sherlock is just a lot less intelligent. I'd rather he was, but the whole series would crumble if Sherlock knew how to actually solve stuff. And it's gonna make for an adorable scene (his bumbliness) so I'm just chalking this up to character interpretation.

Likes

1) In the prologue, Mycroft brings up an excellent point: 'It is the girl's future that is at stake, not her immediate survival. What is to become of her in a few years?' Of course, he and Sherlock are still mostly interested in getting Enola a husband, but he still has a point. Enola is 14. She needs some more education, of whatever sort. Or, as Sherlock mentions later: 'Does any respectable and responsible older person have a care for you? [...] If not, then you cannot possible be safe; any female dwelling alone is a magnet for crime.'

2) There's some guy named Baron Dagobert Merganser. In the Netherlands, Donald Duck's uncle (Scrooge) is called Dagobert.

3) Enola has to make sure her aristocratic accent doesn't slip through. I liked this bit of realism.

4) The riddle that Enola wrote was pretty catchy

5) And now... the reason I liked this book! Sherlock and Enola have quite a bit of interaction, and this is the first we see of them working together. It was very cute, especially since

Spoiler

Sherlock was hurt and Enola was helping him. Yes, I love whump when done right.

Sherlock shows actual love for Enola, and even Mycroft is starting to warm up.

6) There's a non-sexist man in here!

Dislikes

1) "Society-watching was a pursuit that, being a person of democratic convictions, I had scorned, up until now." What does that even mean?

2) This is the fourth book in a row in which Darwin and evolution are mentioned for no good reason.

3) I'm okay with long words, but "dolichocephalic" is overdoing it.

4) I have to admit I'm very prejudiced against stories where girls try to get out of arranged marriages. It's not that it's wrong for them to want to be happy, it's just...
Okay (1) if you've lived your entire life in a culture where it's normal, you will probably accept your parents' decision (

Spoiler

unless your future husband is as horrible as the guy in this book

). (2) Quite a lot of the time, parents actually... cared about their children. Yeah, weird concept, huh? So when they were looking for partners, they would also take the character into consideration.
I guess my problem with the trope is just that it portrays the entire world as anti-women and makes everything seem way worse than it was.
It also makes for a perfect opportunity for Enola to complain about marriage again: 'It had to do with the lock part of the wedlock. Trapped. Horrible, irrevocably trapped' Just because a character doesn't want to marry doesn't mean she has to hate marriage! Nuance exists.

5) Enola continues with the "not like other girls" - spiel by disguising herself as beautiful. Yeah, basically she says her brothers won't recognise her if she looks beautiful... I could read this as being insecure, but it comes across as "I'm not like other girls. I don't care about looks". Except she's constantly calling everybody ugly.

6) Enola steals candals from a chapel, which isn't great. But my bigger problem comes later. Enola talks about feeling "revulsion" while "appropriating altar candals and baptismal water". Apparantly the church is something to be grossed out by.

7) Enola assumes Cecily's father is marrying her off because he's embarrassed by her kidnapping in book something (i don't remember which one it was). She says: "And marrying his daughter to his sister's son was exactly the sort of thing Sir Eastace would do. I remembered how his concern had been all for hushing up scandal, rather than for his daugher's safety, when Cecily had been kidnapped." Now, first of all, we've never even met the man. We don't know how concerned he was. I recall it was he who contacted Sherlock Holmes about it, although I might be wrong. Whatever the case, simply assuming the father doesn't love the daughter because he doesn't love the poor is a bit of a stretch.

8) Enola doesn't say a proper hello to her landlady and her servant (idk was it a servant) at one point, and her excuse is: "the deafness of the former and the humble status of the latter rendered any explanation unnecessary" Yeah, cause you don't have to be polite to the deaf and those of lower social status than you.

So... yeah. The only reason I gave this three stars is because of the sweet scene between Sherlock and Enola.