The Astrologer's Daughter Review

Title: The Astrologer's Daughter

Author: Rebecca Lim

Publication Date in US: June 9, 2015

Date Started: February 25, 2015

Date Finished: March 14, 2015

Format: E-Book

Medium: Kindle Keyboard

Review:

Courtesy of NetGalley

Alright, so I just finished this book after a looooooong time spent reading it and I will admit I had a little struggle to get through this book because I kept having to start and stop with my reading.  As background, I read this book in the middle low points of my moving situation (I'm moving across the state so I can be closer the the library I work in).

"The Astrologer's Daughter" is a story about a young girl, Avicenna, whose mother is MIA.  Her mother, Joanne, was an astrologist (NOT PSYCHIC OR PALM READER, thank you very much) and would receive payment in form of many different kinds in exchange for a horary reading.  She would take the time to use her compass(es) and chart out people's lives using the stars and a graph and would answer their questions whether it be "When will I die?" or "When will my cat die from diabetes?" (the last question is not asked but I'm sure she received questions like that from time to time).

The beginning of the book starts out with the main character Avicenna worrying about her mother's disappearance.  Avicenna has a different background which makes her different from most teenage girls her age.  She was raised by a single mother who was an astrologist, she was caught in a fire that killed her father and left her with bad scar on one side of her face, and she was moved around a lot with her mother.  Avicenna is used to her mother not coming home for days on end but she is not used to her mother not letting her know when she would be home.  This is where the story begins.

I enjoyed the story as a whole and there were some very memorable characters in the story.  I got a little lost throughout the story because there were some parts that were not explained very well.  For example, when Hugh's father is seen by Avicenna for the first time near the end of the book he is introduced as Hugh 30 years in the future.  Not as a Hugh look-alike but Hugh himself.  It took me a minute to realize that no the author didn't just change this into a time traveling book and yes she did just abruptly introduce a character that was not talked a whole lot about.  Most things I did not like about the book had some semblance of being terribly confused about characters and what was actually going on in an instance but for the most part I followed the story line alright and did not struggle too much with identifying characters as they were introduced.

For the other characters, the younger ones can be put in a group of solemn and desolate and the older ones really did not have that much personality with the exception of Boon.  Kircher was a money hungry passing character that played a part in his own death (which I still don't understand why he blew himself up with those pyrotechnics), "homicide" was I feel a ploy to relate to the Asian culture in that people who aren't Asian tend to put Asians together so they feel more at "home", and Avicenna's liaison was a pretty important character who just kinda disappeared in the middle of the book.  

I quite enjoyed Boon.  He was by far my favorite character in the whole book.  Book reminds me of any older gentleman who is able to be a father figure when my daddy is not around.  He cares about Avicenna more than she will ever know and Lim makes that very clear through Boon's body movement in conjunction with how he speaks with Avicenna.  I just found him to be quite an enjoyable character and I wish dearly he was included more in this book.

I feel like this book had it's strong points (nice plot, enjoyable theme, angsty characters teens can relate to) but I also feel like this could have been an incredible book if only some strong elements were added (stronger characters especially Simon and Hugh, better flow of story progression, and a wrap of of the ending).  The ending is what bugged me the most.  The author kind of just stops writing almost.  Like she was done with the story and wrote an "After" part that tells you nothing was really resolved.  Avicenna doesn't find her mother, Eleanor will still be depressed, Hugh will never get closure from him father, and what really happened to Simon's mom?  Did she die?  Is she still in the hospital?  If she lived, has she given up on life?  Where the hell is Avicenna's mom and why is she still playing that dumb word game and not contacting her daughter?!

Rating: 5/10