the daughter of doctor moreau, by silvia moreno-garcia

i received a copy of the daughter of doctor moreau from hachette nz in exchange for an honest review.

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star rating

★★★★

daughter of doctor moreau review

silvia moreno-garcia is one of those authors that i kept seeing around the gram, but never actually picked up one of her books. the daughter of doctor moreau is the first book i’ve actually read by moreno-garcia, although it’s not the only one on my tbr.

i hadn’t realised this at first, but this book is a loose retelling of the island of doctor moreau, by h.g. wells. i haven’t read the original, nor have i watched any of the film/tv adaptations of it.

i found the use of “hybrids” to be a really interesting concept. i was more interested in learning the science behind their creation than i was in carlota’s romance. the idea of combining different animals with a human form isn’t something that’s new (i mean, the egyptians were into it, and so were the romans! i’m sure there are plenty of other cultures with their own human/animal creations). i really wished this played a bigger part of the story.

the romance, on the other hand, felt forced and unnecessary. it didn’t help that carlota became annoying by the midpoint (mostly due to the romantic subplot).

one thing i had an annoyance with was how one character would retell a scene of events, then it’d switch to the next person’s pov and they’d retell the exact. same. thing. like, why am i reading the same thing twice??? once was enough. or a particularly important event where we needed two sides of a story. but not every. single. chapter!! anyway, sorry. it really bothered me.

aside from the repetitiveness of the scenes and the forced romance, the writing style made it a quick read. if it was any longer, i would’ve rated the book lower. but the short length and easy writing style made it a fast read.

buy your copy now!

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