~ Book Review: The Art of Taxidermy

The Art Of Taxidermy: Sharon Kernot
Ebook
Text Publishing
Page Count: 265
Rating: 4/5
Young Adult, Poetry
Trigger Warnings: death, grief

I would like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a digital arc of The Art of Taxidermy in exchange for an honest review.

I was so intrigued about this when I read the synopsis on netgalley so I was so happy when I was approved for it.

I found the writing style of this quite interesting, the plot itself was quite slow and there didn’t seem to be too much happening, aside from Lottie finding animals and bringing them home to try and “resurrect” via taxidermy and her Aunt Hilda constantly trying to make her more of a typical girl and ultimately destroying all of her creations.

A lot of this novel is about the loss of Lotties mother, but I felt the loss of Annie a lot more, as she just couldn’t give her up, in fact it took me a little while to realise that Annie wasn’t actually real and Lottie was just imagining her.

Throughout the novel there are some stunning illustrations that help break up the pacing.

You could see that Lottie’s father wanted to support her, he cleared out his shed to give her somewhere to work, but I do believe he struggled against her Aunt Hilda- as she was the only female in her life.

I will say though, if you have issues with the concept of death or graphic mentions of death and taxidermy then maybe this isn’t for you, I did have to stop reading every now and then as I found it a little too much for me at times.

Aside from that I do have to say that this was beautifully written and it really packs a punch.