Skip to main content

Book Review: The Daughter by Jane Shemilt

Review of The Daughter by Jane Shemilt

Jenny is a successful doctor, loving wife and mother of three teens: twins Ed and Theo, and younger daughter Naomi. Everything seems just right until Naomi doesn't come home from her play practice one night. At that point, Jenny's life unravels as she struggles to understand what happened to her daughter and discovers that her perfect family was not so perfect after all.

The Daughter: A Novel by Jane Shemilt is described as a psychological thriller but it's really more of an introspective story told by a mother who never really knew her family as well as she thought she did. It alternates between her recalling the days surrounding Naomi's disappearance and her life as it is a year later. Jenny is the voice of the story in both cases, so the reader is always within her, viewing the situation from her perspective.

The premise of this story was interesting, the novel was too slow for my liking. While I wanted to know what happened to Naomi, I found myself skipping ahead to see what would happen because it seemed to just go on and on. Perhaps it was because I didn't feel a strong connection with Jenny; I think I got tired of her by about midway through the novel. She had such the perfect vision of her family, it was hard to believe that she really had no clue what was actually going on with her kids.

The explanation of what happened to Naomi (don't worry, no spoilers) didn't seem highly realistic either, at least not in the very end. But I did like that it was a unique way to wrap up the story. The Daughter has gotten some good reviews, so it definitely appeals to some. I think I just expected more action or at least some more drama and excitement.

My Rating: 2.5/5

This review was written based on a copy of The Daughter that I received from TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Popular posts from this blog

Getting back to blogging

It seems that blogging has dropped to the bottom of my list for the past year, and was pretty low for the year or two prior to that. I love to read, and am continuing to do so, but as my regular readers know I haven't been around much. My last blog post was almost a year ago!!

There are many things that have taken me away from blogging. Work has been much more challenging and interesting these past few years, but that means I really don't want to get back on the computer when I get home at night - or on the weekends.

Family life has been more busy with kids having multiple activities in the evenings, leaving little time to just hang out and write about the books that I read.

I will admit to a bit of a Facebook addiction, which means way too much time spent scrolling through my newsfeed instead of doing something more productive. This is one of the things I'm working on and hoping that this will free up some time for getting back to the blog.

Overall, life is good. Work is …
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Review: The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

Peter Byerly is distraught over the loss of his wife nine months ago. He has retreated to their cottage in the English countryside, hoping to return to his love of collecting and restoring rare books. But when he opens a book about Shakespeare forgeries and finds a Victorian watercolor of a woman who looks just like his wife, Peter is soon on a search for the origin of the painting and the truth about Shakespeare's real identity.

The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett is a wonderful journey for anyone who loves books. It follows Peter's search in 1995, which turns into a bit of a thriller at times. But Lovett also takes the reader back in time a bit so we can learn the story of his relationship with his wife and how he came to be a bookseller. He does a beautiful job of expressing Peter's feelings about the rare books he encounters, and his feelings are contagious.

And then he takes us back even further to the history of one particular volume, whos…
3 comments
Read more

Book Review: The Secret Lake by Karen Inglis

When Stella and Tom move to a new home in London, they are sad to have left their friends behind. But soon they have a mystery to solve. Their neighbor's dog, Harry, keeps disappearing. Where is he going and why is he always wet when he comes home? As they investigate the area in the garden where Harry seems to come and go, they discover a hidden tunnel that takes them back to their garden ... almost 100 years ago.

The Secret Lake by Karen Inglis is a wonderful children's book that reminds me of the adventurous stories I read as a child. I saw other reviewers say something similar. I'm not sure what it is about the way the story is told, but it is reminiscent of children's books from many years ago, yet it will definitely appeal to the kids of today.

Stella and Tom have an adventure in the past that leads to new friends and discoveries. While it's a time travel story, it doesn't have a lot of fantasy elements (although there are some moles that act a bit unusua…
1 comment
Read more