3/5

A story shrouded in mystery concerning a disturbing man named Hyde and his relationship with an eccentric Dr. Jekyll told mainly from the lens of one of Dr. Jekyll's friends, a lawyer called Mr. Utterson. Hyde seems to be a deranged man who relishes in committing evil crimes all the while having the support of Dr. Jekyll, even having access to his finances, which baffles Mr. Utterson. Throughout the story, this mystery is gradually unveiled. The atmosphere is tense and keeps the reader slightly on edge. A short novella that won't take much time to read and will likely keep the reader interested with the tension-filled writing style and goes into a good dive into the nature of the human psyche and the aggressive impulses that many of us try to keep under wraps.

Subjective opinion; spoilers ahead:

Given all the hype about this story in mainstream culture, I somehow found it underwhelming. The writing style is pretty much typical of that time, with drawn out descriptions and long-winded sentences that I just find boring after a certain point, but if you're into that sort of writing, that shouldn't pose much of a problem, since it isn't extremely overdone because this is a novella and plot advancement thankfully had to happen at a faster pace.
I wasn't aware of the big reveal of the story, which is the fact that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person. It explores a duality of the human nature and how Dr. Jekyll indulges in his evil tendencies with freedom while being in the form of Mr. Hyde, which he achieves through concocting a special potion for it.

I had an issue with that part of the story not being sufficiently explained. The author didn't tell us WHY and HOW those particular ingredients worked and created that effect. It just felt too convenient, with him being a mad professor and somehow finding a way to transform himself into Hyde, but as for the specific process behind that, we are left largely in the dark. Perhaps during the time this book was written, authors didn't spend much time giving extensive reasons behind such technicalities, but it just felt like convenience writing to me.

Another issue I had is with how little we have seen of Hyde's treachery. We see him trampling over that little girl, murdering an old man, but not much else. Even those scenes were very short and ended really quickly and weren't described brutally. If Hyde was such a despicable character, I would have preferred if the author gave us gory details. Give us the gruesome murders and misdeeds, use graphic and immersive language to make us hate Hyde and see how evil he actually is. Instead, he just described how people felt disgust and repulsion when seeing him. It felt too "fluffy" for me.

Perhaps the century this was written in is also to blame here as I don't know if there were certain repercussions with writing graphically violent scenes. It just wasn't satisfying enough. I don't enjoy violence and gore being written in a none-immersive and detached perspective.

A positive aspect is the tense atmosphere present throughout the story. There is an element of tension and mystery that is always around the corner, which is what pushed me through the story and is what I assume the appeal is, even though some of the substance of the story felt underutilized.

Around the end of the story, I was leaning towards a 2 star rating, but the big reveal at the end and the way most of what happened was explained pushed my rating to a 3 star one.

General impression: It was good but I think it could have been done better in certain aspects.