A review by vanessaglau
The Art of Taxidermy by Sharon Kernot

3.0

The Art of Taxidermy is a verse novel about death, grief and how we cope with losing loved ones. After her mother's death the young protagonist Lottie tries to remedy her grief through collecting dead birds and small animals she finds by the roadside and in fields, trying to preserve them. She sees their death as beautiful, her aunt however sees her obsession as weird and unhealthy. We follow Lottie through her everyday life, watch her befriend a boy from her class (another outsider) and lose her companion Annie. There are surprising revelations and moments of deep, profound sadness in this book - a story of death and loss told through Lottie, her taxidermy and her family history (Germans who emigrated to Australia during World War II) before the bad things are eventually transformed into something beautiful. It was a pretty good read, although it felt a little underwhelming at times. The writing is poetic and almost dream-like, I'm not sure why it was written in verse though. Apart from a certain cadence to the words, I don't think the verse actually added much to the book.