This is absolutely going in my favourites tag. Botany, fungus, some tasteful gore and a healthy helping of queerness. I loved how she was put together with all sorts of things and her constant growth and fluctuation made her kind of difficult to imagine, I really enjoy a certain level of nebulousness to my monsters.

It was gross at times but not scary at at all, I think this book will make a great entry point for someone starting out in queer horror, who wants to dip their toes in but isn't sure what they can handle just yet.

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ilaxaria's review

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.0

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wyddwig's review

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emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I had fun with this! The narrative style was lush (fitting for the subject matter) and it clipped along at a brisk pace so I happily finished it in one sitting of 2.5/3hrs.

The characters were all well-formed, and the way they all came together into their little family of an ecosystem was very believable. I very much enjoyed the very British upper class way of Gregor and Simon’s relationship was both very intimate and very stilted, and the way that cascaded as the plot developed.

The way that you could see that Chloe remembered being Constance was well-handled imo, balanced nicely with the way that Chloe was clearly their own different person from her.

The period-typical homophobia was a clear and present danger throughout the story but not in a way that I found gratuitous, and

the way that Gregor and Simon independently reassured Jennifer that she wasn’t wrong was very nice.

I would personally label this as speculative rather than horror, although there are all the typical body horror elements you might expect from a Frankenstein-style story.

Content Warnings

inkspillolives's review

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dark emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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txikimandy's review

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dark lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A Botanical Daughter is an incredible debut. The prose is lofty like a classic but not difficult; it lends itself to stunning descriptions and wordplay. The twists and turns didn’t fail to surprise me.

The characters are multi-faceted and sympathetic, even as they do highly questionable (at best) things. It’s as if Seymour Krelborn became Dr. Frankenstein.

I adored this book and I highly recommend it. It’s a stunning blend of fantasy and horror, but not dark enough that I couldn’t read it at night.

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piperclover's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I have so many pages of notes about this book and yet I have no idea how I feel about it. This is by far the weirdest thing I have ever read and I wasn't even sure I would finish it. I don't know if this is a 4 star, I don't know if it's a 1 star, I don't know if it's a 5 star. I'm so confused by this book and the characters and my thoughts and my experience.

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renorsomethin's review

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dark emotional funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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augusto_aaa's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Please read this. Oh my GOD, that ending. 😭 Every character is such a lovable asshole and each one goes through a complete and satisfying character arc. Great gothic horror. Some truly unsettling stuff goes down in this story. Awesome setting! Would highly recommend to all plant nerds, and fans of taxidermy! I wish I could write a more coherent review right now but I’m just going through so many emotions because OH MY GOD THAT ENDING!!!

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