The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Rating: ✩✩✩✩✩

I loved this book, but as always, have some notes:

My quibbles:

• This is not a horror story in the traditional sense. It plays on the mythology of an existing horror story, but it is itself not a scary book in a "monstrous" kind of way. (More in a The Stepford Wives kind of way, see the first point below).
• The "big reveal" is obvious from early in the book, so even though there is tons of great plot, setting and writing, the reader knows exactly how this is going to go after about 10% of the book.

What was amazing:

• It is a horror story about men. The creatures are made to accomodate the evils of men, the romantic subplot shows the callousness and selfishness of men, the historical events exemplify the evils of men as colonizers...this is my favorite theme of all time. Here the horror is not the creatures, but why they were built and what happens when powerful men don't get what they want.
• The setting is amazingly written and absolutely drops you right into the Yucatan and the civil unrest of the time.
• The female main character's exhausting level of naivete actually serves a purpose. Her growth IS the story and the blank slate was purposeful by the men using her for personal gain.

Overall this was an engaging read that really highlights the skill with which the author not only writes a narrative, but weaves in much greater themes.

Published on 19 July 2022 by Del Rey

Book #77  of 2023