The Mad Scientist's Daughter

(I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-re

(I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to Angry Robot and Netgalley.)
Cat is 5 years old when she first meets Finn. He’s an android, he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, and he helps her scientist father with his work. He also tutors Cat instead of her going to school, and he’s her best friend in all the world. As she grows up, she comes to rely on him more than anyone, and misses him when she goes away to college.

Cat loves Finn, it’s obvious, but as he is ‘incapable of love’ she knows that nothing can ever become of her feelings, and she tries to keep them hidden. One day after the death of her mother however, her feelings escape, and she kisses Finn. Things escalate, and it seems that Finn is more human than she ever considered, and they have sex.

Cat and Finn can’t really be together though, it’s illegal and immoral, and so she goes back to her normal life. Certain events change things though, and suddenly Finn announces that he is leaving – he’s a machine, not a man, and so he has sold himself to the highest bidder.

This book tells the tale of Cat’s life, and her love for Finn, even though he is a ‘robot’ rather than a man. Can Cat live without the love of her life though? And if robots are sentient, should they have rights?


This book was so rich and so emotional; it made me cry on more than one occasion. I really felt for Cat, who loved Finn but kept talking herself out of admitting it, all because she believed that he was incapable of love. She tried to hide her feelings even from herself at times which I found really sad.

I have to say that even with the story, when Cat and Finn actually had sex for the first time I found it weird. I know that they did have feelings for each other, but she’s asks to have sex with him and he tells her he is capable of it, although obviously he doesn’t get any feeling from it the way she does, and it’s really weird how one-sided the sex was, like, well…. Having sex with a robot!

I liked Finn strangely enough. He was sweet to Cat, and he did seem to have sentience, and he did seem to have feelings for her, even when he told her that he was incapable of feelings. I also thought that the way he behaved when she was with someone else spoke volumes about how he felt, even if he couldn’t put the feelings into words himself.

This story covers a large period of time, from when Cat first meets Finn when she is 5, to the end where she is in her 30’s. Parts of the story I liked more than other parts, but the writing throughout was just so captivating, that I wanted to keep reading, even when I wasn’t loving that part of the story.

The tagline for this book is ‘A tale of love, loss and robots’, and I think that it fits the story really well. The story basically follows Cat’s life from quite a young age, and her background and her love for Finn are a constant background noise within her life, so much so that no matter where she is, she never stops missing him. There is also a lot of loss in this book. I cried on more than one occasion, the story was just so sad in places, but it was so beautifully written that even the sad parts were heartbreakingly good. I actually find it really difficult to tell you how emotionally taxing this book was, and still I loved it, and I’m not going to forget this one in a long time.

Overall; a beautiful and heartbreaking tale of a girl and a robot.
8.5 out of 10.

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DISCLAIMER: I received The Mad Scientist's Daughter as a publish

DISCLAIMER: I received The Mad Scientist's Daughter as a publisher ARC through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

The blurb for this book is a bit misleading, not so much in a bad way. Don't expect a book from the point of view of an android, that's not what this is about. This book is about a young girl's growth from adolescence to adulthood. It follows Cat in her journey to find herself and figure out who she is in the midst of normalcy.

Catarina Novak is a tangled woman cursed with the burden of beauty and an icy heart. Living a life of denial and empiness, she struggles between being happy and doing what society demands of her. She acts out to make herself feel human in a world running rampant with robots.

She's the daughter of two scientists, raised so that she discovers herself instead of having someone else discover who she is for her. She is tutored from age six by Finn, an android her father has attained. Finn is more realistic than any other androids, and has the ability to think and feel.
Cat spends her life as if floating through a dream, she conforms for the sake of conforming. She considers the opinions of her parents before her own, and it ultimately leads her into situations that knows she will regret.
It isn't until Cat is almost 30 that she discovers what it is that she really wants, and decides to pursue happiness.

I do not like romance books. If I had known before I read this that it was mostly a romance novel, I never would have requested the ARC. I can't believe how close-minded I can be sometimes. This book was amazing, it was better than most science fiction, dystopian, or romance novels put together.
It had me pulling my hair out, crying, and laughing with joy.

There are two things I want to point out before you pick up this novel that accounts for the half a star less than perfect on my rating.

1. This book is very slow. It takes a long time for anything to happen, but that in no way means that it is boring. I enjoyed every minute of it, but it can get frustrating waiting for the obvious to happen.
2. Catarina is frustratingly selfless. To the point where it was hard to believe she would sacrifice so much of her happiness to make her parents and society happy.

I loved Cat's character. She was ballsy, and she stood up for those she loved. She is impulsive and stubborn, but she never really knew what she wanted. As the reader, of course I knew what she wanted, but we had to watch Cat figure it out, and she also had to figure out that it was okay to be different in order to be happy.

This novel is a beautifully written, incomparably powerful love story. I loved and hated it for how it made me feel. My heart broke (along with Cat's) multiple times. The perspective throughout the book as Cat ages is impeccable. In the beginning, I felt like I was reading through a five year old's thoughts, in her teenage years, I felt exactly as I did as a troubled young girl, and in her older years, I felt her passion and contempt for the life she had chosen more powerfully than anything I've ever felt about my own life.

This books contains sexual situations, I don't recommend you let your 9 year old read it, but it's a great Science Fiction novel (though lacking a bit in the actual sci-fi department, it doesn't take away from the story at all). If you love romance novels, and want romance with a twist, it's a must read.

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