A review by jaclyn_sixminutesforme
Fauna by Donna Mazza

2.0

This was a bit of a frustrating read for me - it started SO strong with just the right level of vagueness and short chapters that kept me turning those pages quickly. The story is set in Australia in the near future and follows a mother’s perspective as she embarks on a medically assisted pregnancy in a study of sorts. The novel is structured in chapters that follow the weeks in the pregnancy, and then move into years after the birth. While it moves in a very literal sense with the pregnancy and then life of the child, it felt like it became a factual chronicling of growth and other milestones rather than a story or even a character study. I also just felt like it was on the precipice of building into something by way of a plot twist for a large portion of the narrative, and that just never delivered for me - the vague nature of the ending also help this, so all in all not one I would recommend personally.