Hi friends, happy Wednesday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m posting my review of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novel, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by: Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Carlota Moreau lives with her father, Dr. Moreau, who is a researcher and scientist. Montgomery Laughton is his assistant and together in the lab they’ve created The Hybrids, part human, part animal monstrosities. For years, they’ve all lived in harmony, until one day Eduardo Lizalde, the son of one of Dr. Moreau’s customers shows up unannounced and shakes things up. Secrets start to spill out, questions start to be asked and the harmony they once knew may never be restored. The range in which this author can write is astounding and this novel was no exception to the work she’s put out. To be fair though, this one was a little on the slower side, but it still packed a whole lot in a short amount of time. Plus, the way she pulled her readers in and then shocked them with revelations, was really well done. It took some time to get into the story, but once the reader was in, it got really interesting, especially the second half of the book; the first part was more set up to get to the second half. This was based off of, or a retelling of H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, which this reader has never read, so they have no reference in which to tell if this was good or bad in terms of retellings, but it did leave the reader curious as to the source material. The plot was also really strange and weird, but also gripping and had the reader on their toes the entire time because we never knew what was going to happen next. It’s the plot and the story that really stood out because the characters were just alright. There wasn’t anything really noteworthy about them that made the reader love them or think they were memorable. For the most part, the reader liked them, but they could feel so generic at times that they didn’t feel like anything special. Even the relationships between them all felt somewhat boring and predictable. There were moments throughout where some of the relationships grew interesting and definitely piqued the reader’s attention, but it was all towards the end of the novel. What the reader did like about our main character, Carlota, was how much she wanted more for herself in a world that was still very male dominated and watching her try to figure that out. The characters aside, that somehow didn’t deter from the overall story and how well this was written. The reader could overlook the blandness of the characters and their relationships because the plot was really solid. In the end, the reader still really enjoyed reading this, it was creative, fun, and exciting.