Book: Chasing Secrets

Author: Gennifer Choldenko

Genre: Historical Fiction

Page Count: 278

Lizzie Kennedy is the daughter of a doctor, and has been learning the trade herself. However, when rumors of the plague strike San Francisco, she doesn’t know what to believe. When their beloved cook, Jing, goes missing, she knows she has to do something, even if she doesn’t know what.

I really liked this book, mostly because of the main character Lizzie. She goes to a ladies school and absolutely hates it, as they have no sciences, math, or (in her opinion) anything interesting whatsoever. The other girls see her as an oddity and Lizzie can’t help but feel that she can’t fit in. So instead she makes company out of books because, as she says, “A book is a friend you can take wherever you go.”

Once again, I read this book for history. As opposed to the last book I read in The Gilded Age, I thought that it showed me a bit of what life could be like for the wealthier people of that time. This was a large contrast to everything else I read.

In this book many people doubt the existence of the plague, which reminds me of what is going on in our world with Covid 19. Everyone is getting fed information from a lot of different sources (some of them contradicting each other) just like in this book.

Overall, I think you should read this book, and you should definitely read it if you like historical fiction or whacky characters.