The Madman's Daughter (The Madman's Daughter, #1) in WACKY READING CHALLENGES

May 03, 2017 *Dawn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-and-or-magical-realism, read-in-2017

The Madman's Daughter
by Megan Shepherd
#1 The Madman's Daughter Trilogy
Audio narrated by Lucy Raynor
4*

setting: 1895, London & an unnamed tropical island somewhere off the coast of Australia

My, oh my, oh my. (Picture me rubbing my hands together in glee.) I just happened across this novel while searching for the word "boatswain" to fulfill a requirement in a reading challenge. I was pondering Peter Pan (Smee was Hook's boatswain/bosun/bos'n) or Mutiny on the Bounty when I became intrigued by this ...more

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Jul 12, 2019 coffee rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, young-adult, ya-fantasy, romance, human-experimentation

The first time I read it I rated this a 4.5
The second time I gave it a 3.75

2014 thoughts: (view spoiler) The first time I read it I rated this a 4.5
The second time I gave it a 3.75

2014 thoughts: (view spoiler)

2016 thoughts: My opinion still stands on the chimera, experimentation, and madness that happens in the book. It was actually the reason I picked the series up. For some reason I’ve always been fascinated by books that have even a little bit of a ‘how far will humans go for X-reason’ and this one fit the bill nicely.

As I started to finish up the book, I still couldn’t connect with Juliet for some reason, possibly because of the constant triangle shoved at me. She clearly loved Montgomery but she still continued lusting over Edward, going so far as to say she would have fallen to temptation if he ever confessed his love for her or stayed just a bit longer. I just can’t wrap my mind around the concept of ‘I love person A but I’d make out with person B because of our mutual physical attraction.’

By the end of the book, however, I did finally see the worth of Edward and no, he wasn’t just put in to make Juliet drool over him. I do hope to see him in the sequel, especially with his status unconfirmed at the end of the book. I mean, Juliet thought she’d rid us of him, however, it was never confirmed and she tends to make a lot of mistakes. Which is sad since she’s supposed to be analytical. Near the end I just hoped she’d at least analyze something correctly but alas, it was not meant to be.

Another thing I noticed that Juliet frequently did was say that the madness ran in her blood and that it was hereditary. I don’t know much about madness and whether it is, but sometimes I felt like she overly blamed her father for the things that fascinated her (like science, blood, wanting to see the experiments). I mean, why couldn’t she be more like Montgomery who accepted that his actions were crazy and didn’t try to blame someone or something else? Own the madness!

Out of all the characters I felt the most for Balthazar because he’s just this giant deformed experiment who wants to go to London but because he’s an experiment he shouldn’t technically leave the island. I just wanted to slap anyone who’d come between him and getting off the island

Overall, I’m not sure how I’d rate the book. If I put aside my dislike for Juliet, this book isn’t all that bad. There’s a lot of suspense that happens as our characters are stuck on an island with a Monster and experimented-animals-turned-humans. As murders start to pop up, blame starts to go around and we have to pay attention to the little clues scattered in the book (though I think they could be a bit more direct) to find our culprit.

Still, I don’t think I’d recommend this book just yet. I feel it would depend on what I think of the next book or even the whole series.

My rating: 4 out of 5

Parting Thoughts: Even though the romance felt overbearing at moments, the story is pretty interesting and there’s enough tension and suspense that it feels truly scary. Of course, all of this starts to happen closer to the end. The book also ended while I still had some doubts and questions and I’m hoping they get answered in the next book. ...more

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Dec 26, 2019 Irene rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own-physical, perfect-ending, read-in-2020, signed, love-the-cover, popsugar-2020, 5-stars, retelling, plot-twist, atmospheric

*2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge*
Prompt #17: A medical thriller

I'm definitely stretching this prompt a bit, but it is labeled "gothic suspense" and "pulse-pounding," which is close enough to a thriller, in my opinion. And, the subject matter is definitely something related to medicine in a twisted, experimentation-style way.

5/11/20 Update:
Trigger warning: LOTS of gruesome imagery and gory descriptions. Stay away if you have a weak stomach.

Upon finishing this book, I stand by the decision to def ...more

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