Book Review | The Shamer’s Daughter

I received a copy of this novel from Net Galley and Pushkin Children’s Publisher in return for an honest review.

I had never heard anything about this novel, but I read the description of the book and I was intrigued. It was picked as one of the books for the Children’s Book Club I run at work, so it was the perfect encouragement to pick it up and read it.

Honestly I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this novel, it is a great idea for a novel, however it just didn’t seem to deliver. The characters were a bit lacklustre and they weren’t developed fully enough to allow me to get attached to them and actually care about what happened to any of them.

It all felt quite disjointed, the beginning of the novel didn’t seem to match the rest of the novel, and the plot itself seemed to move slowly at the beginning, and then much too fast in the second half of the book. 

The novel seems to be categorised as either teen fiction or 9-12 fiction depending where you check. The ages of the novel are a bit odd, so although it does read like a middle grade fiction to me, I believe that had the author made it a teen fiction novel it would’ve have worked better and been more punchy that way.

Overall I was disappointed by this novel. The blurb intrigued me and its a great idea for a novel, sadly the novel didn’t quite perform for me.