thetsundokuchronicles 's review for:

The Enemy's Daughter by Melissa Poett

2.5

slow-paced

---

This is a dystopian retelling of Tristan &  Isolde that had a lot of potential & a really interesting premise. Unfortunately I just struggled to enjoy it. It read more like historical fiction & didn’t really touch upon the topics and themes I expected to see in a dystopian. 

It was especially jarring as there was people alive from before the world became what it is now so surely there would be more knowledge and information than what we saw. 

There also wasn’t a lot of worldbuilding to understand how the world became what it is. We do get more much later in the story but it left me frustrated for a lot of the book. 

The romance itself felt very insta love and I wish there had been more build up to truly believe they loved each other especially because of the lengths they go to, to keep each other alive. 

I did like Isadora’s character arc as she had to unlearn a lot of what she had believed as truth & learn to stand up for herself. 

I do wish that there had been more to Tristan than just helping Isadora see there’s more than what she had been told. 

I did enjoy the second half of the story more especially as we started to see more of the world and get some answers as why the world is this way.