Name: The Museum Of Extraordinary Things A Novel
Rating: 3.5 (32 reviews)
ISBN: 9781451693560

The Museum Of Extraordinary Things A Novel

Mary Rose Luksha

Great things:
Descriptive writing: I absolutely loved Hoffman's depiction of turn of the century New York. She perfectly captured the dichotomy of nature versus industry - how there are people raising chickens in their yard and you cross a bridge and there are gigantic buildings filled with people at work, and the teeming struggle of the aftermath of prosperity for some and poverty for the masses.
She also did a wonderful job writing about sideshow acts. A woman with no arms, a "wolfman," all these people viewed as monsters in society, but Hoffman writes about them with grace and depth.

Not-so-great things:
The love story. Ugh, the love story. You know right away these two characters are going to fall in love with each other. It's written as though it's inevitable. Which is fine, an inevitable love, how romantic. Except. There was never a scene between the love birds, in my opinion, where after reading it I thought, "yes, that's why they're in love." They just seem to be in love because it's convenient to the story. (view spoiler)[ I understand the initial attraction, Coralie is locked away by her insane "dad" and Eddie is the first man she sees without being under her father's watchful eye. And Eddie is so full of self-loathing that he feels at home with the sideshow "freaks" and then he sees Coralie and falls for her. I get that. But there's never a scene of discovering something deeper that will hold them together past the first stages of a relationship. It just felt hard to believe that those characters would risk so much for each other without much more than a hope.  (hide spoiler)]

The Museum Of Extraordinary Things A Novel

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