Murder Most Unladylike

This is not retelling of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, instead an inspired by Conan Doyle’s character, imprinted into two young girls from 1934. A timeline before World War I, a rather peaceful time for young adults learning in boarding school typically built across the UK. I like both protagonist’ characterizations. Daisy Wells is a privileged stuck up aristocrat girl with too many admirers. Making her object of the envy of the sidekick, Hazel Wong.

Daisy was probably thinking

This is not retelling of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, instead an inspired by Conan Doyle’s character, imprinted into two young girls from 1934. A timeline before World War I, a rather peaceful time for young adults learning in boarding school typically built across the UK. I like both protagonist’ characterizations. Daisy Wells is a privileged stuck up aristocrat girl with too many admirers. Making her object of the envy of the sidekick, Hazel Wong.

Daisy was probably thinking about the murder, and fashionable hats, and who cheated on the math test, all at once, as though she were really three people instead of one.

I like how she was being described as a genius but not too harsh like Doyle’s did to Sherlock. Daisy Wells still a delicate girl with too many touchy subjects, she is disillusioned by her capability. Most of the time she dismissed what Hazel had to say. In this case, they are different with Sherlock & Watson even though they would like to address each other as “Sherlock and Watson”.

It was this sort of thing that made Daisy so fascinating. Almost all the younger shrimps had pashes on her. (A pash, in case you haven’t heard the word before, is school talk for something that is rather difficult to describe—I suppose it’s being in love, but different somehow, and so quite all right with everyone.)

So it’s understandable that Daisy Wells has so many admirers as she is so populer within the clique and school. She knows how to blend with other people, does not act as the smart one, but as the closet ass hole so people would like you. A great lesson to all of us who is struggling to make friend out there.

She wanted to seem a fool, and she was pausing or flubbing her responses because she had decided that a particular fact was not something she ought to remember.

And I love how Hazel described her admiration to Daisy. Hazel came from Hongkong, with black hair and ebony eyes she has been called “The one who came from The Orient”. Hazel is a logical person yet she still has feelings to guide her instinct. Unlike Daisy, she listens to other people and take their feelings into account. The story of how Hazel Wong to blend in after watching Daisy closely for some time.

The Daisy Wells we all pashed on was, in short, not real at all, but a very clever part. I watched her running around, shrieking, turning cartwheels, and looking as though she did not care about anything apart from beating St. Simmonds at lacrosse on Saturday, and I began to see that all the time there was a different Daisy underneath.

Daisy Wells is a multifaceted person and she has Hazel Wong to understand her, to nurture her quirkiness and all of her wild deduction. She almost like Sherlock Holmes, the difference only in the hair and physical appearance. Thought, what I like from Daisy, she is not a junkie (because her condition is not allowed to have one).

The brown paper parcel was full of lotus-paste moon cakes from our kitchen. They are my favorite food, sweet and heavy on my tongue, like nothing here in England. But all the same, I wish my mother would not send them. Lavinia saw one once, and for weeks after told everyone that I ate heathen pies.

I like the humour Hazel made every time Brittons find everything about Asian is weird. Though it’s understandable how white people think about our cuisine, or culture, especially Chinese. Because they are basically everywhere and become a pop culture long before Japanese do.

I sat on my strict gray bed and stared around me at the rows of identical bedsteads and the dismally scratchy and gray bedspreads. I was quite upset by the sight of it, and I remember wondering whether Deepdean might not be doing so well for itself after all. (I had not yet discovered that in England, the way of showing that you are very rich is to pretend that you are very poor and cannot afford things like heating or new shoes.)

The way she is assesing Brittons behaviour is very amusing. British people are humble yet arrogant in the inside. They like to be perceived as normal people instead flaunting around their money or belongings. Though this case highly unlikely happened these days, but I always like British celebrities always looking so humble.

I want to review Robin Stevens’ description about boarding school. I finally know how strict a boarding school in the UK. It was indeed so vexing and probably the main reason why the students went wild once they were out of school. The terms; bunbreak, biscuits, canoodling, maybe not popular in American literary, but Robin used it well in this book. And I love every bit of it.