Tag: netgalley

I originally requested this on Netgalley after seeing a review on Goodreads from someone I follow.  What immediately grabbed my attention was the mention of “The Night Circus”. Anytime that book is compared to something else, I have to read it.  So that is what I did. 

I am not sure how to summarize this book.  It is part historical fiction, part romance, and part mystery.  It has a lot of parts, but not a main focus.  

It is Historical Fiction because it takes place in the early 1910s in New York and Coney Island.  We follow a very wealthy family as they spend the summer at Coney Island. While 98% of the characters in this novel are fictional people, there are mentions of some important people that were alive during that time and are a big part of American history. 

It is part Romance because our main female character, Peggy, meets an immigrant, Stefan, during one of her visits to Dreamland.  She immediately falls for him and they start a “relationship”, but it is very brief and not well developed at all. 

Lastly, it is part mystery because there is a murderer on the loose and women’s bodies are being found on the beach and in Dreamland.  The book opens up with what is suggested to be mysterious behavior, possibly a glimpse of the murderer. 

While I did enjoy reading this book at the time, looking back, it was a bit of a mess.  Each individual element had potential. I am a huge Historical Fiction fan, but I have never read anything concerning Coney Island during the early 1900s.  Personally, I would have loved if this book focused more on the romance with the backdrop of Coney Island and Dreamland. That would have been an intriguing, beautifully written book that I would have been all about. 

What I could have done without was the murder mystery that was secondary, in my opinion, but popped up every once in a while.  In fact, I forgot there was a mystery going on because aside from the opening of the book, we didn’t hear about it for a while after that.  Mystery/Thriller is my most read genre, so I expect a lot out of it. This fell flat. It was very predictable and not at all shocking. Which, if I am being honest, 2019 was a year of disappointing reveals.  But if the writing is good and the path to the reveal is good, I can handle a mediocre reveal. Unfortunately, the lead up was all over the place. 

I think that is my overall experience and final thoughts of this book.  It was just all over, trying to be multiple things, but not succeeding at any of them.  

I am not sure if I would consider this an adult novel or a YA.  We are following Peggy, who is 20. Sometimes she is portrayed as very grown up, very smart. Then other times she is very juvenile, very child like. There could be a lot of factors to that.  Peggy is part of a very wealthy family, where they employ people to do a lot of their day to day things. There was one scene in particular where she went to draw herself a bath, instead of her maid doing it.  We got a narrative on how she was struggling to turn the faucet on, that she didn’t know how to do it. Whatever the author intended of this, my thought was “are you kidding”. Later on in the book we now have Peggy who is single handedly solving the mystery and figuring out who the murderer is.  It doesn’t make sense. It is like she has two different personalities, two different age ranges. Little things, but can take you out of a story. 

Overall, the story was okay.  I am disappointed because I think it had the potential to be a new favorite of mine.  It had some of my favorite aspects of a book. It just was a little messy and a little disjointed and confused on what It really wanted to be. 

Thank you to Netgalley, Nancy Bilyeau and the publisher for an advanced copy.  I have agreed to give my honest review in exchange for an early read.

3 Stars