The 100 Book Tag

October 30, 201623 Comments

I don’t often take part in Tags but here I am joining in with my second one in two weeks! FictionFan posted these questions in celebration of her 100th TBR Thursday post and I couldn’t resist having a go at answering them myself.

What is the 100th book on your TBR list? (In the unlikely event that you don’t have 100 books on your TBR, what book’s been on there longest?)

I don’t keep a nice, detailed TBR spreadsheet like FictionFan, so I’ve simply taken the 100th book on my To-Read shelf at Goodreads. And book number 100 is…

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Apparently I added this to the shelf in August 2012, so I really should tackle it soon! I want to have another attempt at reading Crime and Punishment first, though.

Open your current book to page 100 (or randomly, if you don’t have page numbers on your e-reader) and quote a few sentences that you like.

She wiped her eyes, her thoughts in turmoil. She knew now how she would answer Kaneshige’s note. When the poet Narihira was sent into exile he had passed Mount Fuji on his travels. Like Narihira she too would journey to the east and she too would see Mount Fuji. And if Kaneshige was on his way to fight the barbarians, he would pass by too.
This was what she would write: “If only we could meet…where the roads cross, in the shadow of Mount Fuji.”

From The Shogun’s Queen by Lesley Downer

When you are 100, what author(s) do you know you will still be re-reading regularly? (This should be an easy one for those of you who are already over 100…)

Well, I’m not already over 100, so I’ll just have to assume that my reading tastes won’t have changed too drastically by then and that I’ll still enjoy reading the same books I like reading now. I would expect my regular re-reads to be classic authors like the Brontës, Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas and Daphne du Maurier – I’ve re-read several of their books already and can’t imagine not wanting to read them again! I’m sure I’ll also be re-reading Dorothy Dunnett’s books for the rest of my life (you knew I would manage to get the Lymond Chronicles into this post somehow, didn’t you?)

Link to your 100th post (if you’re a new blogger then link to your tenth post, or any one you like). Do you still agree with what you said back then?

My 100th post was a review of Drood by Dan Simmons, which I posted in March 2010. At the time I said:

A gothic mystery/horror story set in Victorian London, featuring Charles Dickens and narrated by Wilkie Collins sounded like exactly the kind of book I would enjoy. Unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to its fascinating premise and I was left with mixed feelings about it.

I went on to describe some things that I loved about the book and also some that I disliked. I probably won’t ever read this book again, but if I did I think my second review would be very similar to the first one.

Name a book you love that has less than 100 pages. Why do you love it?

This is a difficult one for me to answer because I’ve always been drawn to long books and can’t think of many I’ve read with fewer than 100 pages. I was going to pick Mr Harrison’s Confessions by Elizabeth Gaskell until I discovered it actually has just over 100 pages (although I suppose it would depend on the publisher and the edition anyway). However, I’ve had a quick search through my blog archives and have reminded myself of one very short book that I did enjoy:

The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski (99 pages, Persephone)

This is an unsettling little book about a young woman who falls asleep on an old chaise-longue and wakes up to find herself in the year 1864.

If someone gave you £100, what would be the five books you would rush to buy?

I don’t keep a nice, detailed Wishlist like FictionFan either (I’m starting to see that my organisation skills must be sadly lacking) but here are a few books I’ve been looking at recently and wishing I had a copy to read now.

Heartstone by C.J. Sansom – I’ve just read the fourth book in the Shardlake series, Revelation, and am desperate to start the next one!

The Bull From the Sea by Mary Renault – This is the sequel to The King Must Die and I can’t believe I still haven’t read it. Reading another book set in Ancient Greece a few weeks ago reminded me about it.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman – I don’t often buy non-fiction for myself, but I’ve been interested in reading this for ages.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West – Another non-fiction book. This was recommended to me a while ago and it sounds fascinating.

A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse – There are lots of Virago Modern Classics I want to read; I heard about this one when I read The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (it was one of her inspirations) and it’s really time I found a copy.

What book do you expect to be reading 100 days from now?

I don’t plan my reading that far ahead so I’m not sure – but 100 days from now will be the beginning of February when, hopefully, I should be approaching the final title on my Classics Club list. I think it would be nice to finish with a re-read of one of my favourite classics, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, so it’s possible that I’ll be reading that one in February.

Looking at The Guardian’s list of “The 100 greatest novels of all time”, how many have you read? Of the ones you haven’t, which ones would you most like to read? And which will you never read?

I’ve only read 29 of them, which isn’t very impressive, is it? I don’t like to say that there are any books I’ll never read, as I don’t know how my tastes might change in the future, but I think I’ve heard enough about Moby Dick to put me off for life. As for the books I would like to read, there are a lot on that list that interest me, but none that I’m desperate to read. If I had to pick one that I’m particularly looking forward to, it would probably be Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.

Free Question – Create a 100 themed question of your own choice and answer it.

What book were you reading 100 days ago?

This is easier to answer than the question about 100 days from now! The date 100 days ago was 22nd July and according to Goodreads I was in the middle of Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger.

Now it’s your turn. If you’d like to answer these questions too, consider yourself tagged!

Small and Spooky, edited by M.R. Nelson

October 28, 201610 Comments

As it’s Halloween on Monday, I thought today would be a good time to tell you about the wonderful collection of classic ghost stories I’ve just had the pleasure of reading. It’s called Small and Spooky and the six stories it contains were selected by M.R. Nelson, editor of two other short story collections (she refers to them as ‘taster flights’), one of which – Love and Other Happy Endings – I read and enjoyed earlier in the year.

Three of the stories in this collection are by authors I already know and love, while the other three are by authors who were new to me. All six share a common theme – they all feature a child or the ghost of a child – but otherwise they’re all quite different. It’s difficult to know how much you can say about short stories without spoiling them, so I’m just going to give a brief overview of each one.

The first is The Marble Child (1918) by E. Nesbit, a favourite childhood author of mine. I remember loving her children’s novels The Railway Children and The Phoenix and the Carpet, but had no idea until recently that she had also written ghost stories. This story about a little boy who is fascinated by the marble child he sees in the church gets the collection off to a good start. Part of the story is written from the boy’s perspective and part from an adult’s which, as the editor points out in her notes, makes this story a sort of bridge between children’s and adult fiction.

The next story is a great one: The Wind in the Rose-Bush (1903) by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, an American author I had never heard of until now. The story follows Rebecca Flint as she travels to a small, remote town hoping to see her young niece, who has been living with her stepmother since her parents died. From the moment Rebecca arrives and sees a rosebush moving when there’s no wind, she knows something is wrong. I found it easy to guess what was going on in this story, but Rebecca didn’t know and I could really feel her growing sense of unease and confusion as the truth began to unfold.

Next is Their Dear Little Ghost (1890) by Elia Wilkinson Peattie (also another new author for me), which as you might guess from the title is not a scary ghost story at all. It’s actually quite a sweet and moving little story about a child who dies just before Christmas and her godmother’s love for her even in death. I found this one of the weakest stories in the book, but I still liked it and thought it made a nice contrast to the previous one, which was quite creepy!

The following story, Morella (1835), is by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is another author I love and I was already familiar with Morella (I think I read nearly all of his short stories and poems years ago when I was given his complete works as a Christmas present). This tale of reincarnation is not one of his scariest and I don’t think it’s one of his best either, but I can see why it was chosen for this collection as it does fit the theme.

The fifth story is another strong one: The Old Nurse’s Story (1852) by Elizabeth Gaskell. I was convinced I had read this one before – it appears in Gaskell’s Gothic Tales which I borrowed from the library a few years ago – but when I started to read, I didn’t remember it at all. In this atmospheric story set in winter, a ghostly child haunts the Northumberland countryside. I love Gaskell’s writing and this is an excellent example of a Victorian ghost story.

Finally, we have The Doll’s Ghost (1911) by F. Marion Crawford, another author I’ve never read before. This is an unusual story about a child’s doll which is broken and given to a dolls’ hospital to repair. Although I found this story a bit eerie, the ghost was a nice ghost, which meant the collection finished on an uplifting note! I would be happy to read more by this author.

These are six very enjoyable stories and perfect for those readers who, like me, prefer their ghost stories to be spooky but not terrifying! It was good to revisit Nesbit, Gaskell and Poe – and also to be introduced to three new authors, all of whom I’m now interested in exploring further.

Thanks to M.R. Nelson for providing a copy of Small and Spooky for review.

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

October 26, 201617 Comments

For Phase 5 of Heavenali’s #Woolfalong, we are asked to read some of Virginia Woolf’s non-fiction – essays or diaries. As I hadn’t read any of her essays or diaries at all until now, the choice was easy for me: A Room of One’s Own, her 1929 classic and possibly the book for which she’s best known. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction books so I wondered what I would think of this one. Well, I thought it was fascinating! The edition I read had just over 100 pages but so much is packed into those pages that I feel quite overwhelmed trying to write about it all.

A Room of One’s Own is Woolf’s famous extended essay based on a series of lectures she gave at two women’s colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. In the essay, Woolf uses a fictional narrator – whom she refers to at various points as Mary Beaton, Mary Seton or Mary Carmichael, names taken symbolically from a 16th century Scottish ballad – to explore the subject of women and fiction. As a starting point, she states that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” and then goes on to explain why she believes this statement to be true.

For many women living in the modern day and experiencing a level of equality women in the past could only dream of, it may be hard to imagine a lack of money or a room of our own preventing us from writing if that is what we wish to do, but in Woolf’s day – and especially in the decades and centuries before that – these things could be very real obstacles. I’m not sure I completely agree that women must have a certain amount of money and their own room to be able to write, but Woolf’s arguments are very thought-provoking and make a lot of sense.

Near the beginning of the book, we see the narrator attempting to enter a library and being turned away because it is for men only – ladies aren’t admitted unless they are accompanied by a man or have a letter of introduction. This is just one illustration of how women in the past were denied the same rights and freedoms which were available to men. Obviously this made it more difficult for them to bring the same depth of knowledge and experience to their writing that a man would have – and also much more difficult to become financially independent. Living in poverty, Woolf explains, meant that women were more likely to be deprived of a private space in which to sit and write and the spare time in which to do it.

Here I am asking why women did not write poetry in the Elizabethan age, and I am not sure how they were educated; whether they were taught to write; whether they had sitting rooms to themselves; how many women had children before they were twenty-one; what, in short, they did from eight in the morning till eight at night. They had no money evidently; according to Professor Trevelyan they were married whether they liked it or not before they were out of the nursery, at fifteen or sixteen very likely. It would have been extremely odd, even upon this showing, had one of them suddenly written the plays of Shakespeare…

The narrator then goes on to imagine that Shakespeare had a sister, Judith, who was just as talented as her brother but had no opportunity to use her ability. She wasn’t sent to school, was given no encouragement to read and write, and ran away from home when her father tried to force her into an early marriage. Judith’s story is tragic, and Woolf uses it to show that talent alone isn’t enough; without equality and opportunity, it would have been impossible for Shakespeare’s sister to achieve Shakespeare’s success.

Another aspect of the book I particularly enjoyed was Woolf’s discussion of the work of four female authors I love – Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, George Eliot and Jane Austen – exploring and comparing the ways in which their lifestyles and the opportunities open to them may have affected their writing. She talks about Jane Austen’s lack of a separate study to work in and how she tried to hide her manuscripts when a visitor walked into the room, and about Charlotte Brontë’s anger at being interrupted during the writing of Jane Eyre and how this influenced her writing:

She left her story, to which her entire devotion was due, to attend to some personal grievance. She remembered that she had been starved of her proper due of experience — she had been made to stagnate in a parsonage mending stockings when she wanted to wander free over the world. Her imagination swerved from indignation and we feel it swerve.

As I’ve mentioned, this is a short book, but despite that I decided to read it slowly – the six chapters over six evenings – because I wanted to have time to think about what I’d read and to digest all the ideas and issues Woolf raises in each chapter. I would definitely recommend this approach to reading the book – and I would also recommend keeping a pen and paper beside you as you may find yourself desperate to make a note of your favourite passages as you read!

So far this year I’ve read three books by Virginia Woolf; To the Lighthouse just wasn’t for me, but I loved this one and Flush. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll be taking part in the final phase of the #Woolfalong – I’ll try to, if I have time – but if not, I’m sure I’ll be exploring more of Woolf’s work eventually anyway. I’ve already read Orlando, which I enjoyed, but any other recommendations would be welcome.

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley

October 24, 201612 Comments

I love Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series. I love the 1950s setting, I love getting to know the inhabitants of Buckshaw – the de Luce estate in the little English village of Bishop’s Lacey – and most of all I love Flavia, our eleven-year-old narrator with a talent for solving mysteries and a passion for chemistry and poisons. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, though, is probably my least favourite Flavia novel so far. I found it quite disappointing, but I’m hoping it’s just that I was in the wrong mood for it and that things will get back to normal when I pick up the next book in the series.

The first Flavia novel, if you’re like me and prefer to read a series in order, is The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches is book number six and although some of the earlier novels could probably be read as standalones, I wouldn’t recommend reading this particular book until you’ve read the fifth one, Speaking from Among the Bones, because it ended on a cliffhanger – and this one picks up the story from that point.

The de Luce family have been joined by their friends and neighbours on the platform at Buckshaw Halt, waiting for the arrival of the train bringing Flavia’s mother, Harriet, home to Bishop’s Lacey. Flavia has never known her mother – she was just a baby when Harriet went missing (presumed dead), in Tibet ten years earlier. It’s an emotional day for Flavia and her family, then, but it’s also an eventful one in other ways…a stranger at the station begins to give Flavia a cryptic message, but moments later he is found dead beneath the wheels of the train as it leaves. Did someone push him? And could his death be connected with what happened to Harriet?

I think every time I’ve written about this series I’ve said that the mystery-solving is only one small element of each book and that the real charm is in the setting, the characters and Flavia’s narration. In this particular novel the mystery is almost non-existent and Flavia doesn’t get a chance to do the detective work she usually does, searching for clues and making lists of suspects. This gives The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches a different feel from the rest of the series and I think that could be why I didn’t like it as much. It seems that the mystery element was more important to me than I thought it was! That’s not to say, though, that there were no secrets to be uncovered here and no revelations to be made – because there certainly were.

Flavia, who was ten years old when we first met her, is now nearly twelve and I think Alan Bradley is doing a great job of showing the subtle changes in her character from one book to the next as she begins to grow up. Things happen in this book which require a more mature attitude from Flavia and she is forced to make some difficult decisions, but there are also times when she still behaves like the child she is – for example, when she becomes convinced that she will be able to use her chemical skills to reanimate a dead body.

With a storyline based around Harriet’s return, most of the action in this novel takes place in and around Buckshaw which means Flavia spends a lot of time with the other de Luce family members. Her relationships with her father and her sisters, Daffy and Feely (Daphne and Ophelia), are still strained, but some of the information revealed in this book helps us to understand why this is. I’ve been wondering since the beginning of the series why Daffy and Feely had such a problem with Flavia, so I’m pleased that things have finally become a bit clearer!

I’m not sure whether I liked the direction the story went in towards the end of the book but I’m still looking forward to reading As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, and hoping I will like it better than this one.

Rebellion by Livi Michael

October 22, 2016October 22, 2016Leave a comment

This is the second in Livi Michael’s trilogy of novels telling the story of the Wars of the Roses from the perspectives of Margaret Beaufort and Margaret of Anjou. After reading the first book, Succession, a few months ago I was keen to continue with the trilogy; Rebellion picks up directly where Succession ended, but as long as you have some knowledge of the period, it’s not really essential to have read the previous novel before starting this one. I’m not going to go into the background to the Wars of the Roses here, though; if you’re not already familiar with it, I’ll refer you to my review of Succession so I don’t bore you by repeating myself!

Rebellion begins shortly after the Battle of Towton, often described as the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil, which ended in disaster for the House of Lancaster and put a new Yorkist king on the throne – Edward IV. The defeated Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou, have fled to Scotland and from there Margaret travels to France to plead for help from the French king. Determined to win back the throne for Lancaster and secure the inheritance of her young son, Prince Edward, she eventually returns to England to lead an army into battle against York once again.

We also follow the story of another mother, Margaret Beaufort, whose only son, Henry Tudor, has been taken from her to be raised in the household of a guardian, William Herbert, at Raglan Castle in Wales. Margaret wants nothing more than to be reunited with Henry and can’t bear to think of him growing up in someone else’s care – but Henry is also a Lancastrian heir and it seems that there are people more powerful than Margaret who are making other plans for him.

Rebellion has a wide scope, encompassing most of the key events which occur from 1462-1471 and incorporating many important historical figures of the period from Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, to Margaret Beaufort’s husband (her third), Henry Stafford, and the family of the Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker. We also have our first glimpses of Edward’s younger brother, Richard of Gloucester, who I’m sure we’ll be seeing much more of in the final novel. The characterisation is generally quite well done; my only problem was with the portrayal of Edward IV. I know he wasn’t perfect and, like his grandson Henry VIII, is said to have become fat and gluttonous as he approached middle age, but even so, I don’t think we really needed such graphic descriptions of his bodily functions!

As in the first novel, though, the main focus is on the lives of the two Margarets. I think both of these women are great subjects for historical fiction and both have interesting stories to be told; neither is particularly likeable, but their emotions, ambitions and thought processes are convincingly described. I could feel for Margaret of Anjou as she struggled to keep the Lancastrian hopes alive and I could sympathise with Margaret Beaufort as she suffered the pain of being separated from her beloved son.

I preferred this book to the first one, I think; I found it easier to get into, probably because the first few chapters concentrate on one character (Margaret of Anjou) so the narrative is more continuous at the beginning instead of jumping from one perspective to the next – although there’s plenty of that later in the book. The most notable thing about the previous book, Succession, was the use of medieval chronicles, from which quotes are given at the beginning or end of almost every chapter in such a way that they form a large part of the story. The author uses the same method again in this book, but the extracts seem to be used more sparingly than in the first one, so that they add an interesting angle to the novel without being too much of a distraction.

Rebellion, then, has its good points and its bad, but there’s no doubt that it’s set during a fascinating time in England’s history. Something that comes across strongly in this novel is the uncertainty of the period and the way in which fortunes can unexpectedly rise or fall and hopes and dreams can be destroyed in an instant:

“None of this is as we initially planned,” Warwick said, gazing intently at his son-in-law. “And none of it is set in stone.”

I’m looking forward now to reading Accession, the novel which will bring the trilogy to a close.

Thanks to the publisher, Penguin, for providing a review copy of this book.

The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin

October 20, 201615 Comments

I can’t remember where or when I first heard about this book, but I’ve been interested in reading it for a long time and was pleased to see that it had been made available through NetGalley. It was worth the wait because it was every bit as much fun to read as I had thought and hoped it would be.

The novel opens with poet Richard Cadogan on his way to Oxford, where he hopes to find some literary inspiration. Arriving in the city just before midnight, he is surprised to find a shop with the door unlocked and goes inside to investigate. Inside he finds nothing but toys – ‘Meccano sets, engines, dolls and dolls’ houses, painted bricks, and lead soldiers’ – but venturing up the stairs at the back of the shop, he stumbles across the dead body of an elderly woman on the floor.

Before Cadogan can react, someone hits him on the head and he wakes up to find himself locked in a tiny room used for storing cleaning products. He manages to escape through a window and wastes no time in informing the police – but when they accompany him to the street the next morning, the toyshop is gone and in its place is a grocer’s which looks as though it has been there all the time. How could a shop possibly disappear overnight? Feeling that the police aren’t taking him seriously, Cadogan calls on his friend, Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University, Gervase Fen. Fen has some experience of solving mysteries (there are two previous novels in this series, which I haven’t read – The Case of the Gilded Fly and Holy Disorders) and he agrees to help Cadogan investigate.

With the main characters being a poet and an English professor, the dialogue between them is clever and witty, filled with literary allusions and wordplay. When they need a break from crime solving, they amuse themselves by playing games with titles such as Detestable Characters in Fiction. I’m sure we can all think of plenty of those!

“Got you!” said Fen triumphantly. “You miss your turn. Those vulgar little man-hunting minxes in Pride and Prejudice.”

At this exultant shout the muffled, rabbity man at the nearby table frowned, got unsteadily to his feet, and came over to them.

“Sir,” he said, interrupting Cadogan’s offering of Richard Feverel, “surely I did not hear you speaking disrespectfully of the immortal Jane?”

But the literary references are not always just for fun…they form an important part of the plot too. As a mystery involving wills, inheritances, unscrupulous lawyers and small spotted dogs begins to unfold, Fen and Cadogan discover that a knowledge of Edward Lear’s limericks will be useful in deciphering some of the clues. I loved this aspect of the novel; it was so imaginative and made up for the fact that the mystery itself is not a particularly strong one. The plot relies heavily on coincidences, improbabilities and things which are so far-fetched as to be ridiculous – but none of that really mattered to me. I was left with the impression that the author had as much fun writing this book as I had reading it.

Published in 1946, The Moving Toyshop is the third of Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen novels but it stands alone perfectly and I didn’t feel that I was at any disadvantage because of not having read the first two books. I’m sure I’ll be tempted to pick up one of the other books in the series soon!

Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch

October 18, 20165 Comments

It’s been more than five years since I read Carol Birch’s excellent Jamrach’s Menagerie, an adventure novel set in the Victorian period; I had intended to go back and explore her earlier books, but that never happened, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to read her new one, Orphans of the Carnival. It’s a very different book from Jamrach, but just as fascinating in its own way.

Orphans of the Carnival is the story of Julia Pastrana, a Mexican woman born in 1834 with a rare genetic condition, hypertrichosis terminalis, which has resulted in her face and body being covered in thick black hair. In addition to this, Julia also has a jutting jaw and thick gums and lips, caused by another condition called gingival hyperplasia. Julia is an intelligent, talented woman – as well as speaking three languages, she sings and dances well enough to build a career for herself in the circuses and theatres of 19th century America and Europe. However, she knows that the crowds who come to watch are not really interested in her musical ability; they just want to marvel at her unusual looks.

Interspersed with Julia’s story is the story of another woman, this time one who lives in London in the 1980s. Her name is Rose and she’s a hoarder – she hoards useless items she finds in the street, things that other people have thrown away. Near the beginning of the novel, she brings home an old, discarded doll which she names Tattoo; the doll provides a link between Julia and Rose, but we won’t find out exactly what the connection is until we reach the end of the book.

This is an unusual and moving novel based on the life of a real person. Yes, Julia Pastrana really existed and you can easily find pictures and information about her online. Although I didn’t know anything about Julia before I read this book, it seems that Carol Birch has followed the known historical facts as far as possible while using her imagination to fill in the gaps. The novel is written in the third person but mainly from Julia’s perspective and by the end I felt that I knew her well.

Julia is a gentle and sensitive woman, and also quite an innocent and vulnerable one, largely because she has spent so much time sheltered from the outside world, living with friends and colleagues from the circus and carnival circuit and hiding her face behind a veil when she does venture out in public. I had a lot of sympathy for Julia; I’m sure there would be medical treatment and support available for someone born with her conditions today, but in the 1800s there was nothing that could be done. I felt bad for her when she reads a review of one of her performances describing her not just as ugly (which she was prepared to accept) but also as ‘an insult to decency’ – and again when her show is closed down on advice from a doctor who claims that the sight of her face could be harmful to pregnant women.

Eventually, Julia meets Theodore Lent, the man who is to become both her manager and her husband. I found it hard to tell what Theo really thought about Julia. He does seem to have some affection for her, but he also appears to be much more interested in the money to be made than he is in Julia as a person. It’s so sad when Julia, who just wants a husband who loves her, says to Theo: “It’s not love though, is it? Not like it is with other people. Real humans.”

Julia’s story is interesting and compelling, but I don’t think the 1980s sections add very much – in fact, they are just a distraction. The characters aren’t developed in anywhere near as much depth as the historical ones and although I did appreciate the eventual shocking revelation which links the two storylines together, I didn’t feel that it was really necessary.

This isn’t a perfect book, then, and it’s also not one that I can say I ‘enjoyed’ as I found it quite uncomfortable to read (not because of what Julia looks like, but because of the way other people treat her and respond to her). It’s certainly worth reading, though, and I’m glad I’ve had the chance to learn a little bit about the life of Julia Pastrana.

Thanks to Canongate Books for providing a review copy via NetGalley.