I've never read a novel written in verse before, so this was a new experience for me. The writing is beautiful, and it brought up some raw emotions.

The Art of Taxidermy is a beautifully crafted novel in verse that essentially is about the complexity of grief and how different people deal with it. Set in Australia, the story is told through the eyes of 12-year-old Lottie, who has seen a lot of loss in her young life. Due to what she has experienced, Lottie has a growing fascination with the dead: collecting dead lizards, birds, and rodents as if they are treasures. Lottie's strange hobby draws consternation from her Aunt Hilda, who believes such things are inappropriate for young girls.

For as short and as simple as it seems at first, The Art of Taxidermy is actually a multilayered, complex little novel. Right off the bat, we meet Lottie, who sees the beauty in dead things, and quickly becomes determined to learn how to preserve and immortalize them just like the ancient Egyptians she learns about in class.

The story is revealed piece by piece – the complexities of Lottie's life slowly unfold in the pages. From the death of her mother, to how death has haunted Lottie and her family throughout the decades. But – as I was surprised to discover – this is more than just the story of one family. A dark and not-often-discussed part of Australia's past is explored through Lottie's family history. I ended up doing a lot of secondary research as I was reading this – the lack of context would normally annoy me, instead I was made aware of some important history I knew nothing about previously.

I'm not usually a poetry person, I found the verse to be very readable – I sped through it in one sitting. The way the author discusses grief and death is beautiful and lyrical. 

"It is good to feel sad,
It is good to cry,
It is good to grieve.

Tears swelled in my eyes,
Father's voice was soft and gentle and full of pain.

In his eyes I saw
what I felt.
It was as if I had travelled
the distance
to his heart,
to the dark recesses
of his grief."

I felt so deeply for Lottie and her situation. On the one hand, she is a budding scientist, but deep down, handling these tiny dead creatures is how she copes with her loss. Everyone deals with death it in a different way – for Lottie, it's the preservation of dead creatures. While this easily could have been a grotesque book, instead it turns something that might be "gross" into a tender exploration of how a young girl handles death. 

My one gripe about this story, is the contentious relationship between Lottie and her Aunt. A large part of the plot is devoted to the struggle between the two, while Lottie's father just sort of stands by with a shrug. Aunt Hilda continuously points out how she believes Lottie's strange hobby is "not fit for girls," and it isn't until the end that things turn around. I had hoped to see more growth between the two characters – as a result, the Aunt's character came off as very two-dimensional to me. 

Overall, I enjoyed this story far more than I expected to. It was exquisitely written and atmospheric – I was captivated from page one. Despite being in verse, I didn't have trouble getting into the "flow" of the author's writing, and I didn't find any portions to be too vague or metaphorical. Additionally, I was pleasantly surprised about how much I learned about Australian history from this beautiful little book. Would I recommend it? Absolutely – don't let the verse aspect scare you off, it's more than worth dedicated your reading time to.

I found the genre this book was written in really interesting, as it was like prose written like poetry.
Overall I enjoyed this book, even though originally I picked it up because of the cover. It can be a bit unsettling as there are some descriptions of dead animals.

I really am not a fan of books written in verse like this but I was willing to give it a go. It did not live up to my expectations at all unfortunately.

I’ve never given taxidermy much thought, and I don’t particularly enjoy the idea of recreating dead animals, but somehow this book showed me the art of it. Lottie enjoys taxidermy and the way it allows her to recreate and, in a way, revive them back to life. An interesting way of looking at it that I never considered. Her family has a history of tragedies and deaths that fuel this interest. Her mother passed away after giving birth to a stillborn and her sister drowned when she was 6. For her, taxidermy is a way of dealing with that grief that doesn’t leave. As much as she’d like to bring her family back to life, she cannot, and being able to do taxidermy is a way for her to bring back the beauty and life to creatures lost to death. Her aunt does not approve, and continuously tries to deter her. It doesn’t come from a place of malice, but concern that I could understand. It’s certainly an unusual hobby to have, but Lottie doesn’t do it to be harmful but rather the opposite. The topic of death can be heavy, and this book showed the grief and pain that can be associated with it, but also that death doesn’t mean that those you love are completely gone

I love books that are written in verse so this was a quick read. It was a good story but just not my usual jam.

<i> Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy of <u> The Art of Taxidermy </u> via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. </i>

This book was not what I was expecting at all, but in a delightful way. The title, description and cover appealed to my morbid interests, so I did not realize that it was written entirely in verse until I began to read it. Modern poetry can be a bit difficult to slog through at times, but I found <u> The Art of Taxidermy </u> incredibly easy to read. The imagery was vibrant and the descriptions of Lottie's experiences and consequential emotions and coping skills moved me. It was refreshing for me to read a book that was honest about death and its physical forms. The novel being set in Australia and nodding to the German immigrants and their mid-20th century experience in internment camps was an unexpected rare gem. It was sorrowful, but tied the book together so well. I was utterly spellbound. Fans of Ellen Hopkins will enjoy Kernot's style, but anyone with an interest in the macabre ought to give this one a go.

The Art of Taxidermy is a heartbreaking verse novel about grief, and the different ways we deal with it.
When Lottie loses her mother at a young age, she becomes fascinated with death, and starts collecting dead animals. Her aunt disapproves of this pursuit, whilst her father encourages her morbid curiosity.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you netgalley and publisher for the early copy.

This was well-written verse novel that I would recommend checking out.

Heartbreaking and a coming of age story, who would have thought such a combo would make a beautiful and poetic novel. Kernot's words are like art and I can envision all the beautiful things that Lottie see's. No longer does a dead animal look like one, instead love and care bring the animal back to life. Her father see's her actions as they are - a revival of her mothers memory and a way to understand death and he silently encourages her forward. Her Aunt sees her dissections and collections of once living things, as unnatural and admonished Lottie against such practice. I loved the lyrical verse style of this book so much and look forward to reading more by Kernot.

*RECEIVED FROM NETGALLEY

I did not expect for this to be written in spoken word/prose (I think that's the word I'm looking for). I also like how the title actually sticks to the actual point of the book. I loved the main character of the book stuck to what she wanted to do despite her family's opinion on her doing taxidermy. I also loooooved the artwork that was in the novel as well. If you have the chance to read it I would definitely read this. It's under 300 pages (I think even under 200 if not right around 250).

A charming novel about a girl's obsession with death. It beautifully explores grief and loss.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest, voluntary review.

Short but so dark. Perfect for me. Our main heroine, Charlotte was amazing. The book is heavy but I loved it. I recommend it

This is a brilliantly dark book, really detailed with a heavy focus on death and dead things (mainly animals). Of course, the main character of the creepy death-obsessed book is called Charlotte. It is gorgeous and lyrically written and tells the story of Charlotte struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother. The whole story is infused with this loss and with her turning to examining death as a way to make sense of it. Her dad is brilliant and supportive of her unusual interest. Her aunt is not. I couldn't stand the aunt: she's bossy, controlling and wants to change Charlotte to make her more "girly" and therefore more acceptable in her eyes. This is a short story but packs a brilliant punch and emphasises the importance of being true to yourself.

A very interesting take on a coming of age story. I enjoyed the format immensely. I found that very few words were needed for the point of each poem to come through, and that the way each poem was done flowed well to create an easy to follow overall story line.
The pain that Lottie felt, for the loss of the ones she loves, and her beloved creatures really was quite palpable. I felt like this little girl just needed someone to sit and talk with her, and really wished I could reach out and help her.
Learning a little about the Taxidermy trade was a nice addition to the story. I always love discovering something factual in a work of fiction.
I did find that some pieces within the book felt repetitive, and that the story may have been able to progress quicker, and with more of an attention grabbing quality, if the fillers were taken out. We experienced the same things often, with Aunt Hilda destroying a little piece of Lotties world in the name of making her more girlish.
In the end, I really loved that Lotties father came through for her, and stood up to Aunt Hilda. It's the sort of love and support we all wanted to feel growing up, and it really did warm the heart. 3 stars

Lottie investigates death and dead things after her mother’s death. Her father allows her scientific endeavor, but her strong-willed aunt thwarts her. Written in prose verse, this story flows in fits and starts, sort of like grief itself, giving the reader a sense of Lottie’s emotional state. The writing is beautiful, the story unique, the format intriguing. I confess that seeing the “n” word threw me, but it’s in context, and no matter how you feel about it, it is part of history, so that denying it is indeed whitewashing history. I was fortunate to receive this lovely, melancholy story from the publisher Text Publishing through NetGalley.

I'm not quite finished, but I am loving this novel so far. Each entry is a short, concise, powerful look into what it means to deal with grief in an abstract. The first person perspective is compliments the subject matter very well.

This would have easily been a 5 star book if the story was told in a traditional format. Verse just seemed to leave too many gaps.

I have two types of 1 stars: books I didn't retain anything from and books I hated with a fiery passion. This book was the former of the two. I really like books told in verse and I was pretty interested in the premise of this book but I think the two didn't combine well for me. In the beginning it jumped a little bit between information points from poem to poem. This caused for not a lot being explained well. Therefore later on I found things hard to follow and finally I just didn't retain anything.

3*.

I clearly need to read the books I download faster because I cannot recall what led me to download this one. It was definitely outside of my regular genre comfort zone but I enjoyed it.

The Art of Taxidermy is a novel told in short prose. It is the story of Lottie, a young girl of German descent growing up in Australia in what seems to be the 70s or 80s. Lottie has lost her mother and struggles to fit in with other children. Partly because she is outcast as a German, partly because she is odd, and partly because she is slightly obsessed with the idea of finding and re-animating dead animals.

I found Lottie endearing and despite taking a while to warm up to the writing style and the prose, I actually quite enjoyed it.

I'd recommend this one to my friends with darker tastes.

*with thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.