Title: My Dear Henry
Series: Remixed Classics: Book Six
Author: Kalynn Bayron
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Length: 272 Pages
Category: Gothic Horror, Gaslamp Fantasy, Young Adult
Rating: 4.5 Stars
At a Glance: Kalynn Bayron does a great honor to the source material, working in characters who fit into this story, some in new ways, and giving it new twists while keeping with the aesthetic of a menacing presence shrouded in the dark and foggy alleyways of London.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: 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 expulsion 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 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…
Review: Gabriel Utterson wants nothing more than to study law. His father, however, wishes his son to follow in his own footsteps and practice medicine. Gabriel’s father counsels his son on the importance of being polite, respectful, to be a shining example of deference and humility. Though even the liberal application of those virtues will not get Gabriel ahead in the world. It hasn’t worked for his father. Gabriel is a young Black man. That will always be used against him by a bigoted society.
Racism plays a role in Kalynn Bayron’s My Dear Henry, as does homophobia. Gabriel meets a fellow student at the London School of Medicine, Henry Jekyll, where Henry’s father, Dr Jekyll, teaches science. Forming a fast friendship, they find themselves falling in love with each other and are not at all good at hiding their feelings. Not that they were necessarily trying. It’s the consequences of their relationship that drive this adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to its pivotal ending. The fallout from Dr Jekyll’s actions makes it all the more sinister and compelling.
This book is lovely, dire and heartrending. It begins with the challenges Gabriel and Henry face as Black, gay young men in Victorian England, and continues with their dismissal from school and the use of the fog-shrouded streets of London to hide what lurks as Gabriel searches for answers. He wants to know why Henry has disappeared. He wants to know who the mysterious Hyde is and, more importantly, why he has unfettered access to Gabriel’s dear Henry.
What transpires is an ominous case of Hyde and seek. Not to mention a deadly one.
but it requires you to make yourself invisible.”
The chilling turn to this story is Dr Jekyll’s belief that he can “cure” his son of his affection for Gabriel, which mirrors Stevenson’s theme that we all possess a dual nature—what Jekyll sees simply as the pure versus the impure rather than that which makes people complex and unique. Conceiving of a way to separate one from the other will surely result in a son Dr Jekyll can love and be proud of. Except he doesn’t reckon on the forces of love and the heart as an influencing factor in his theories and equations.
The complex nature of Henry’s relationship with himself, let alone with his father, plays out as Gabriel labors through heartache and fends off his own monster. Kalynn Bayron does a great honor to the source material, working in characters who fit into this story, some in new ways, and giving it new twists while keeping with the aesthetic of a menacing presence shrouded in the dark and foggy alleyways of London.
You can buy My Dear Henry here: