A Girl Made of Air

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In the beginning of this book, I was really unsure if I would like it. The format of the story is an older woman being interviewed about her life story. Typically, this is not a format I particularly enjoy. However, around 40% through, I really began getting invested in the story and where it was going. I'm honestly surprised at how much I liked this book. It's not very character driven, which is one of my first qualifications of a good book.

This book follows Mouse, a young girl born in a circus family. She is an outcast and a loner who later becomes a funambulist. She recounts her life story, detailing the history of her parents, as well as the woman who came to raise her. I won't go into to much detail about the plot so as not to spoil anything.

The plot of this story was captivating. I went into it thinking this was a YA book about a cute circus. Boy was I wrong. It is a very dark book, with a character laden with a dark past. The characters felt a little distant from the reader, which I think is due to the narrator, as well as the interview format of the book. However, that didn't make the plot any less poignant.

One of my biggest gripes with this book is the rampant fatphobia throughout. The narrator constantly brings up weight in regards to other characters, making it known how gross she thinks fat people are. It ended up being distracting and gross.

I would recommend this book to someone looking for a dark circus story about a woman trying to navigate life when she wasn't given much to begin with.


TW: alcohol, alcoholism, assault, blood, child abuse, child neglect, emotional abuse, fatphobia, hallucinations, misogyny, needles, physical abuse, pregnancy, prostitution, rape (on the page), sexim, sexual assault, sexually explicit scenes, starvation, suicide (on the page), war