Review: Daughter of the Centaurs

Goodreads Summary: Malora knows what she was born to be: a horse wrangler and a hunter, just like her father. But when her people are massacred by batlike monsters called Leatherwings, Malora will need her horse skills just to survive. The last living human, Malora roams the wilderness at the head of a band of magnificent horses, relying only on her own wits, strength, and courage. When she is captured by a group of centaurs and taken to their city, Malora must decide whether the comforts of her new home and family are worth the parts of herself she must sacrifice to keep them.

This was a hard book to get into for me; I read the first thirty or so pages then set it aside for almost a month without ever really feeling drawn back to it aside from an obligatory "I started it, now I have to finish it" type of thing. I think it was the style of writing that really made it difficult for me to lose myself in this book, even after I had gotten a few hundred pages into it the style still stuck out to me...I didn't lose myself so completely that I didn't notice the actual writing, it was always there.  

I liked the idea of the story, and I love centaurs [RECOMMEND ME MORE FANTASY NOVELS WITH CENTAURS, PLZKTHX.] so I was fascinated by the overall motifs of the novel which is what had me sticking it through. I wanted to know more about how everything was going to come full circle but ultimately I wanted to know more about the centaurs themselves and how their culture came to be. And I have to admit, I have issues with this one as a dystopian type novel. Aside from mentioning a previous race known as the Grandparents/People and authors of that time period [people like Emily Dickinson and Stephanie Meyer particularly stand out for me] it felt more like a fantasy novel and I think if it had been just that I could have liked it more...it felt like the dystopian portion was imposed on it and that just didn't jive.

 Daughter of the Centaurs was one of those cases of me being more fascinated by the side characters than the main character; don't get me wrong, Malora was fascinating and I liked her bond with horses and she was an interesting protagonist...I just happened to like the side characters, particularly the centaurs far more. I felt like that had bigger/bolder personalities, they stuck out to me and I'm likely reading the sequel, A Gathering of Wings, mostly to spend more time getting to know them and seeing how they develop. 

Overall I wish I could say I loved this one because it revolved around horses [which I love] and centaurs [whom I also love] but it just wasn't quite there for me. Not amazing, not fantastic, just okay.

2/5