17 November 2015

The Astrologer's Daughter (ARC Review)

The Astrologer's Daughter | Rebecca Lim
Published by: Text PublishingJune 9th 2015
Genre: YA, Mystery, Paranormal, Psychics
Pages: 321
Format: Ebook
Source: Text Publishing, via Netgalley

“It’s going to happen,” she would tell me calmly. ”I even know when. It’s a twist in my stars. It’s written there, and we have to accept it.”
Avicenna Crowe’s mother, Joanne, is an astrologer with uncanny predictive powers and a history of being stalked.

Now she is missing.

The police are called, but they’re not asking the right questions. Like why Joanne lied about her past, and what she saw in her stars that made her so afraid.

But Avicenna has inherited her mother’s gift. Finding an unlikely ally in the brooding Simon Thorn, she begins to piece together the mystery.

And when she uncovers a link between Joanne’s disappearance and a cold-case murder, Avicenna is led deep into the city’s dark and seedy underbelly, unaware of how far she is placing her own life in danger.

Pulse-racing and terrifyingly real, The Astrologer’s Daughter will test your belief in destiny and the endurance of love.

The first 50% of this book is pretty darn awesome. The second half? Trainwreck. The Astrologer's Daughter set me up for an awesome mystery, and yeah it's pretty cool, but as soon as the book hit 60% there were ableist slurs, utter bullshit and this line: "The way he's looking at me actually makes me want to cover my body in a burqa" I MEAN???? This girl is Chinese, not any nationality where wearing a burqa is traditional, which makes it NOT OKAY. Cultural appropriation with a side note of potential racism. Plus throw in a use of the word "retarded" for kicks and everything I lived about this book fizzled.

But I'll say some things about what I liked. There's a POC main character. It's a missing person mystery. It's set in Australia, which was a nice change to the US-centric norm. The missing persons guy Wurbick was awesome, and my favourite - he acted like an overprotective father when he was just Avicenna's Liaison. Also - the name Avicenna, pretty cool. Plus, I really REALLY liked the extensive astrology in this book ... until I didn't. After the ninth rambling (an impossible to understand) explanation of planets and words I'd never heard of, it got kinda old and I was skipping pages. My favourite thing is how it could be read as a contemporary mystery or a paranormal mystery depending on your own personal beliefs.

And the things I didn't like: the overuse of technical waffle. I thought the MC was smart in the beginning but she got into cars with strangers and let them into her home, which is so dumb. Plus I expected better so the slurs and disrespect really disappointed me. Was gonna be a four star rating but after this crap, it's seriously dropped.

Characters 
Setting/world 
Writing 

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