DNF @ 44%
I have tried reading this book at least three times and I can’t get invested enough to keep reading at this time and don’t think I will try to read in the future. The premise sounds very interesting and the writing is good. There’s a lot of racism and homophobia as expected due to the setting/historical setting and that is hard to read and not sure I’m in a mental space to keep suffering through this book when I’m not invested in the main characters and the relationship seemed to jump from zero to a hundred and Gabriel seems overly obsessed with the relationship without enough foundation to how he got there. I do wish he stood up more for himself.

I have read several books by Kalynn Barton so I really wanted to love this one. I love a good classic retelling but didn’t quite connect with Gabriel and Henry. It was a good read.

I really really really wanted to absolutely love this book but I didn’t. It was an okay read and I feel terrible about it. It’s probably just me. I could not connect with this one and kept getting so distracted in my own head that I had no clue what I just read.

The idea of it had me hooked but I couldn’t stick.

4.5 Stars

****

Gabriel Utterson leaves his rural home to go to London for a medical degree. He would prefer to go to law school, but his father asked him to join the medical field and he wants to please him. As a Black man his medical degree will relegate him to the morgue, but he is happy to fulfill this role when he meets fellow student Henry Jekyll. Henry's father, Dr. Jekyll, is the teacher for the Black students and has high standards for his son. So, when Henry shows an interest in Gabriel, Dr. Jekyll separates them and Gabriel is pushed to become a clerk for Sir Carew. Two years later, Gabriel tries to reconnect with Henry, only to find him distant and emotionless. Meanwhile, a strange young man, named Hyde, has taken up residence at Dr. Jekyll's family home. What is Gabriel to do?

What an ingenious retelling of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Having both Gabriel and Henry be Black students added a layer of depth in terms of not only the homophobia they face, but the blatant racism and lack of job opportunities.

Gabriel is so faithful to Henry, not believing that Henry could ever forsake him. So, he tries his hardest to fix things, to find out why Henry seems so changed, and to figure out who Hyde is and what his ties to the Jekyll family could possibly be. Gabriel is caring, kind, a hard worker, determined to make something of himself in a world set against him. But, he is also honest with himself and his dreams of the future, his relationship with Henry, his love for him, which he wishes Henry could also feel comfortable with. But, Henry tries so hard to hide himself and be the perfect son for a strict and judgemental father.

The twists and turns in this novel were so well done, slowly drawing out the whole story. As well, we have Gabriel in a precarious situation with Sir Carew that had my hairs raising and my fear for him seeping out as I read. The school allowing this was disgusting and I wanted to destroy every one of the authorities within the school. The story really shows the power of rich, white men and how much they are able to get away with. The horror they inflict on others and the standards they create within society that keep Black people from finding more powerful positions and allows homophobia to continue to exist and thrive. This degradation bleeds down into the minds of other people who believe they must adhere to these strict rules in order to live within this horrible society, and it pushes them to do bad things to those they love.

This book very much addresses the idea of conversion therapy, of chemical castration, and of sexual repression. So, if you are going to read this book please be aware of these trigger warnings. As well as sexual assault. Specifically, Henry tries desperately to live up to his father's expectations, at the expense of his own happiness and mental health. I felt disgusted that these practices occurred, and let's be honest are still occurring. How could any parent think it is okay to try and rid their child of a piece of themselves, of their queerness, as though they could carve it out and still that child would be whole. Awful!

I highly recommend this book. It read like a classic novel with characters that felt so human. I felt so protective of these two young men, who had to face such horrors. I was glad that Gabriel had people in his life who fought for him, who knew who he was and still showed him love and kindness. Made sure that he knew the world was not all awful. Henry just needed the same in order to finally let go of the impossible expectations and prejudices of a few.

A stunning twist of historical fiction, enwrapping a classic story in new costuming and a startling new viewpoint, MY DEAR HENRY is author Kalynn Bayron's amazing remix of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," only from the viewpoint of the nearly invisible, downtrodden, repressed classes of poor Blacks, including those with Brilliant minds suited to professional careers such as Medicine and Law who are instead treated as nearly--or in actuality--slaves. Add to this the striving of some to achieve respect and acknowledgement, but who are yet unable to open their minds to the even more downcast and repressed among themselves: the unacknowledged and constantly denigrated and tormented LGBTQ community!

By turns heartbreaking, heartwrenching, heartwarming, and hopeful, MY DEAR HENRY is a novel that ripped and then remade my heart, and it will not soon be forgotten.

This, sadly enough, did not work for me. I really wanted it to though. I feel like I need to say that I have not read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but I am of course familair with the basic story. I think the author did a great job diversefying the story, and including themes of racism and conversion therapy within the story and character motivations. Those elements were BY FAR the most interesting elements of this book. The rest just didn't work for me.
To begin with, I just didn't connect with Kalynn Bayron's writing in this one. I had a hard time getting really pulled into the story. I also feel like at times this book kind of felt more like different scenes poorly stitched together, rather than an actual consistant story. Therefore I felt like I missed out on so much, and it overall just felt a bit odd to me.
I also didn't really connect to any of the characters. I feel like all characters except Henry were extremely underdeveloped and I could not tell you a single thing about them. This is especially bad as Henry isn't our protagonist either, that's Gabriel. Can I tell you anything about him besides the fact that he's deeply in love with Henry? Nope! That kept me from fully getting invested in this book as well. On top of that the romance between Henry and Gabriel also was extremely underdeveloped, which made the fact that Gabriel's only character motivation for his actions was his love for Henry feel kind of flat. So yeah, this book didn't really work for me despite me really wanting to like it.

I didn't know how she did it but this was a good read. A bit twisted in my taste of books, but it was a good read. And it was a bit trippy as well.

A retelling with a queer, Black MC. Loved the writing and atmosphere, but overall the story wasn't for me. I'm definitely a mood reader, and I was not particularly in the mood for this. Perhaps another time?

Tbh, I’ve never actually read the original Jekyll & Mr Hyde so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I know the general story thanks to pop culture and Wishbone the Dog. I think in general this storyline just isn't my favorite of the classics, but I do think the author did a great job of remixing it and making this old story seem fresh and accessible to a new generation of readers. I think the relationship between Henry and Gabriel is something that a lot of people wanted and picked up on from the original so making this lgbtq was a smart choice, even if at times the relationship felt a bit rushed. I think the authors note at the end of the book was really insightful and made me appreciate the book even more.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

My Dear Henry: A Jekyll & Hyde remix joins the other brilliant and unique Classic retellings, setting this amazing story into a world ready to discrimate for skin color and sexual orientations. In a world where two young men fall in love, but are forced to be apart by the rules of society and social expectations, the Classic story is narrated in an unique way, involving parents violence and being forced to hide oneself from the rest of the world.
In this unique story, Kalynn Bayron talks about discrimination, violence and the struggles in being oneself in a very violent and ignorant world, where the difficulty of being oneself manifests itself in being literally...two people. One free to act and the other suppressing himself.
I really enjoyed reading this book!

The story is written well and I loved all the mysterious aspects. The characters are reliable and relatable, and I was thoroughly involved in the plot.

This was an intriguing remix of a classic that I really enjoyed. Making the characters POC is a great way to highlight the class differences of the era, and to show that a lot of these problems still exist today. Also loved the romance between the characters, and how the author uses that to change how the story is told and why it happens the way it does. I feel like in this version, what Hyde does is still horrible, but there is actual motivation behind it, unlike the "whelp, Hyde is just evil" of the original.

Highly recommend!

I've read a few of these Remixed Classics books and I have loved each and every one of them. This series manages to share with readers a classic story but they do more than repeat the same story. My Dear Henry somehow manages to keep the origins of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but has added feelings of love, acceptance, hopelessness, and so much more. This book gave me a book hangover and I highly recommend it!

I don’t know why my reviews didn’t post especially since I know I did a review for this one. I have it on my Instagram page months ago, but this book was super amazing. I was looking forward to reading the story and it did not disappoint. It was spooky and all the right places, and haunting to the effect of Being beyond intriguing.

This was good. This was really good. Personally, I'm a bit skeptical about retellings but I liked this one a lot. I loved the world building, the love, and the exploration of inner and societal conflicts and how the characters dealt with them. I also just enjoy seeing how authors turn classics queer (even though I did say I was skeptical about them)

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our list for order next year and will recommend it to students.

I'm not super familiar with the original story as I've never read it, although I have read abbreviated versions. However, I liked this twist on it and it's by an author that I've read from in the past.

What a fantastic take on a classic tale! I love how Mr Hyde is everything Jekyll hates about himself and wants to hide from society. I also like that the entire story is told from the perspective of the boy who loves him. I do think, again, that she uses way too many adjectives, and the narrator of the book kept mispronouncing common words which was irritating, but I liked it overall. I would say my biggest complaint is that the identity of Hyde was hinted at way too early, but then again, it’s a retelling of Jekyll and Hyde, so maybe it’s just obvious bc we all know the story.

I noticed that everything Jekyll hates about himself, he tries to erase, almost like conversion therapy. It’s very sad to watch him try to eradicate that which he hates when it’s exactly what Gabriel loves. The issues of acceptance and self-love and personal exploration are well handled here. I also felt a little bit of an Elijah McClain vibe when Hyde is arrested for dancing in the park, which was a very sad bridge into real life.

Of all the classic remixes, My Dear Henry is the one I thought would work the best for me. I love anything spooky, and anything queer. However, this didn’t totally work for me. I think Bayron is a super talented writer but in this I think she sometimes struggled to balance the original work with her own unique vision. There’s some lines from the original that throw off the whole story, tonally. Still, this was well done and I love that young readers can now read this story with diverse representation. This is a great pick for students who want something spooky and Victorian, but are sick of the often white and straight stories they are given. It’s also a fast and action packed read, making it much more accessible than the original. Ultimately, I think most of these remixed classics should be kept in all teen libraries. They provide valuable representation while exposing teens to the classics that shaped the stories we love today.