Book Nook: The Madman's Daughter

Since this book came out, I have been attracted to the cover. A beautiful, but melancholy young woman staring out at the ocean barefoot and alone. What story lay between the pages of such a teasing cover?
The Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd takes the classic story by H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and reimagines the story to ask “what if Dr. Moreau had a daughter”?

Juliet Moreau, abandoned daughter of the vilified and supposedly dead Dr. Moreau works as a cleaning girl in the hospital where her father used to work. Juliet is a feisty girl who doesn’t let her circumstances prevent her from continuing to survive by herself. Stumbling into some students performing a gruesome surgery similar to her father’s science forces her to question whether her father is truly dead. Her questions bring her in contact with an old acquaintance who, somewhat unwillingly, takes her with him to the island where her father escaped to. What she finds there shocks and horrifies her. Not only did her father survive, but he continued to work and create a society of dangerous Beast-men.

Shepherd really left me speechless by the end of the novel. Her ability to weave a complex story around the frameworks of the original that honored the story while at the same time twisting the characters and the plot to become her own unique creation. I thought at the beginning that the romance that Shepherd was setting up would end up as a trite, superficial love story with some gothic horror thrown in, but that wasn’t what happened at all. The love story is still fairly superficial (this is Young Adult literature, and it is hard to get away from superficial kitschy romances), but the characters and the plot ended up nothing like what I expected from the first few chapters.

The tone is quite dark at times, and the murders of the Beast-men are quite creepy. The whole story exudes this air of suspense, isolation, and horror. The novel ends with a nicely set up cliffhanger that leaves me anxiously waiting for the second book to come in at the library. I would probably suggest this book series to readers who might be into the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, and possibly the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld (there is quite a bit of genetic engineering and the nature of humanity discussed in this book). If you’re looking for something with a much stronger horror edge to it The Monstrumologist series by Rick Yancey is creepily atmospheric and decidedly gruesome.

*This blog is part of a grant Medfield has been awarded through the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Library and Services Technology Act administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.