Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father's "museum," alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River. The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father's Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor's apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman's disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.
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[YOU WOULD THINK it would be impossible to find anything new in the world, creatures no man has ever seen before, one-of-a-kind oddities in which nature has taken a backseat to the coursing pulse of the fantastical and marvellous]***
(Simon & Schuster UK, ebook, 24 April 2014, bought from Amazon)
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I read this for 2017 Popsugar Reading Challenge. The category is 'a book with an eccentric character'.***
I absolutely loved this book. It reminded me of two books I love, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter.
I loved the setting. I really enjoyed fiction set in circuses, freak shows, funland's and those sorts of places. They have huge potential. The author brings the setting to life. Coney Island and the sideshows and exhibits become a place of mystery and wonder if a little sinister and creepy.
I loved the characters. I liked how the novel alternated between Coralie and Eddie's perspective, showing how their two lives become gradually, fatally linked. Coralie and Eddie are great characters. I also loved the other people Coralie encounters growing up at her father's museum.
Coralie's father is a horrible person. His exhibit is little more than a freak show, and one he rules with sheer cruelty. I was horrified when Coralie, with her deformed hands becomes a mermaid at the museum. What kind of monster could do that to his child. He does worse and my flesh crawled at times.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things is not an easy book to read. Coralie's father is a monster. The book is, however, a joy to read.
