Circus of Wonders

While the story manages to bring to live what it set out to do - a more intimate and truthful vision of what it could have been like to be a freak in Victorian London - the personal destinies of the main characters fell flat for me. Besides that, the feminist twist the writer gives the trajectories of those same characters seems contrived to say the least. Having said that, the novel sheds a much-needed light on a lesser known era and experience.