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Jan 12, 2012

Lee-ann rated it:

Yesterday morning I received a copy of The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay from a friend of mine. It was the book of the month for the Yummy Mummy Book Club and I was eager to start reading it so I could actively participate in the discussion. Anyhow in just over 24 hours I have complete book!

I generally enjoy historical fiction because I usually learn something I didn't know before or am able to relate to other books I've read and The Virgin Cure didn't fail me. From the very beginnin More...

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Nov 18, 2011

Louise rated it:

Story Description:

“I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.”

So begins THE VIRGIN CURE, bestselling author Ami McKay’s much-anticipated new novel. Set in the tenements of lower Manhattan in 1871, where the author’s own great-great-grandmother once worked as a groundbreaking female physician, the novel is told in the voice of Moth, the daughter of a Gypsy fortune teller and a ne’er-do-well who aband More...

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Jan 28, 2012

Lorraine rated it:

Not nearly as good as The Birth House. Quite a disappointment by comparison, in fact. The story follows Moth, a kid of a Gypsy mother who sells her daughter out and the kid eventually ends up being groomed for prostitution. I'm not sure why so many pages are devoted to the pre-Miss Everett era...maybe to prove there was little other hope for Moth? Anyway, I was thinking there'd be more into the 'profession' for Moth than there was. Really, aside from Moth being so young and the aspect of syp More...

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Dec 02, 2011

Ruth rated it:

Set in the same era (and the same terrain) as Scorsese's Gangs of New York, Ami McKay's second novel focuses on the plight of girls rather than boys living on the very mean streets of New York. This was an era where there was absolutely no safety net for girls who were orphaned, abandoned by their parents, or sold into semi-slavery. It was also a time when some men were actually stupid enough to think intercourse with a virgin would cure them of syphilis. (Of course some otherwise smart men also More...

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Nov 07, 2011

Alison rated it:

Like the large bar of dark chocolate I intended to mete out a piece at a time but instead polished off in two days, I planned to read Ami McKay's new book, The Virgin Cure, slowly. Despite my best efforts, I finished it within a week and am left awed and yet still hungry. I hope blogging and talking about it with fellow readers bring me the satiety I seek.

The Virgin Cure is the Dickensian-style story of Moth, a 12-year old girl living on Manhattan's rat-ridden Chrystie Street in 1874. More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2011

Luanne rated it:

Ami McKay's first novel The Birth House was a phenomenal success. I have no doubt that her newly released second novel - The Virgin Cure - will also be bestseller. And, it's one of my favourite reads for 2011.

I was hooked from the opening line..."I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart."

And so begins the story of Moth, born into the slums of Manhattan in New York City. In 1871 Moth's mot More...

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Feb 21, 2012

Kristilyn rated it:

Where do I even begin with this review of Ami McKay’s latest novel, The Virgin Cure? I had eyed this book many times both in book stores and online, but finally got hold of it by winning a Twitter contest by Random House of Canada. Excited to finally have a book by Ami McKay, a wonderful Canadian author, I realized that I had no clue what the novel was even about. I was initially drawn in by the odd name and the beautiful cover. I did not expect the novel to be what it was about and I really did More...

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Dec 28, 2011

Mel rated it:

This book is hard to explain. First thing - I don't think I really like the format that it was written in. You had extra exerpts on the side of the page plus another character's point of view inserted into the story. It got a bit confusing and annoying if I'm perfectly honest. I felt that it detracted from the flow of the story.

The story itself was gripping and sad. I found myself feeling for young Moth as she went through this gruesome and hard journey. I did find myself forge More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 09, 2011

Joanie rated it:

"Sometimes, for a moment, everything is just as you need it to be. The memories of such moments live in the heart, waiting for the time you need to think on them, if only to remind yourself that for a short while, everything had been fine, and might be so again. I didn't have many memories like that."

Now, bits and pieces like these scattered throughout the book ragged on my conscience and had me change the rating from 2 to 3 stars. I thought it was a bit too harsh because t More...

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Feb 16, 2012

Teena rated it:

This book started off okay. It was an interesting story to see how Moth was living in poverty with her mother, who was a Gypsy and made selfish decisions. Her mother sold her to wealthy woman as maid. After being constantly beaten and abused by the woman, Moth escapes and heads home, only to discover that her mother has disappeared. With no choices, Moth enters the world of becoming a whore. All this at the age of 13.

I wasn't crazy about the writing style ... I found it draggy and draw More...

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Jan 20, 2012

Cheryl rated it:

This was a quick enjoyable read, pure if predictable storytelling. I actually most enjoyed the edges and back of the story.
Some of the Goodreads reviews complained about the sidebar footnotes, but I really liked those, how they acknowledged the unusual, the unexplained and the ephemera of a time past that we don't understand and have little knowledge of. It was sort of like reading in a story in a museum, and these sidebars were the captions for the exhibits. The style of them, at the More...

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Feb 21, 2012

Davytron rated it:

If Slammerkin and The Night Circus had a baby, The Virgin Cure would be the result. Honestly, the entire time it felt like Slammerkin-lite, or "Slammerkin: Now Published by Disney." I know it's not exactly fair to compare the books but the subject matter makes it impossible not to.

The story is narrated by a girl named Moth but the author added in bits of news articles, poems, advertisements, and notes from another character's perspective as well. The book also takes place pa More...

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Jan 01, 2012

Barth rated it:

"Mama sold me the summer I turned twelve." These first words in the first chapter of The Virgin Cure introduce a theme that most readers would consider repugnant but were acceptable a scant two lifetimes ago. In the following pages, Ami McKay masterfully teases out the story over, under, around and through Moth - a child destined to be victimized. It is the sub-themes that make this book entirely interesting for the modern reader. Similar to The Birth House, the deuteragonist is a woma More...

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Feb 05, 2012

Kendra rated it:

The Virgin Cure is story of Moth, a young girl overcoming the setbacks of being born into poverty in New York's slums in the mid-1800s. Moth runs the gamut of despicable people who take advantage of her in horrible ways, but she keeps a strong will to live and hopes for a better future. Ami McKay intersperses Moth's narrative with the perspective of Moth's doctor friend, who sheds light on various practices and superstitions that rule lives and dictate some of the treatment Moth receives.

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Nov 27, 2011

Carolyn rated it:

This story takes place in 19th century New York. At the time there was the myth that having sex with a young virgin girl would cure a man of syphilis. A similar belief about the cure of AIDS also contributed to the spread of that disease in Africa.
The story revolves around a 12 year old girl named Moth. She is part Gypsy and lives in extreme poverty with her fortune telling mother. The filth and squalor of her surroundings is vividly described. Her mother sells the young girl to a wealth More...

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Nov 07, 2011

Laura rated it:

It is no secret that Ami McKay's The Birth House is one of my all-time favourite reads. I've been eagerly anticipating McKay's new work of fiction, The Virgin Cure for what seems like years.

After finishing The Virgin Cure I am most struck by McKay's style. The story is, of course, captivating; so much so that I didn't stop once to make an annotation in my book as I am wont to do. But the novel's structure is what really causes me to stop and comment.

When I first started r More...

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Dec 14, 2011

Dawn rated it:

Ami McKay's sophomore release confirms her seat at the table in Canadian literature. Her tone here is slightly more relaxed than in her initial novel, but it suits the material and makes this a fast read.

In "The Virgin Cure" we follow a girl forced to grow up quickly to meet the needs of her reality. Crushing poverty. Service as a lady's maid to a nightmare worthy of Dickens. Pre-teen prostitution, and finally a quiet escape from the underworld of old New York.

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Dec 12, 2011

Lindsay rated it:

"The Virgin Cure" took me longer to read than "The Birth House" did, but I would say I enjoyed it just as much. Moth was a wonderful character, so easy to sympathize with (though this would have been easy even if she was a poorly developed character, since she faces so many hardships over the course of the book), and her innocence made her trials so much more tragic.

Less positively, I found the sidenotes from Dr Sadie to be unnecessary. I know the author was mostly More...

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Dec 19, 2011

Chelsey rated it:

For some reason, I am always drawn to stories about brothels in the 1800s. There is just something so interesting about the way women lived and the double life men engaged in just to be near them. In Richard B. Wright's Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard, prostitutes were tough women, boyish, rugged and vulgar. Amy McKay's "near-whores" were much different.

I knew I had to read The Virgin Cure as soon as I read the synopsis. "The Virgin Cure" was the belief that men with More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 14, 2012

Marie rated it:

In The Virgin Cure, a young girl named Moth is sold as a servant to a wealthy, but cruel, woman. After suffering much abuse, Moth meets Miss Everett, who takes in young girls to work in her brothel. Her cliental are particularly interested in young virgins, much like Moth. Soon she meets other young girls in the same situation as well as Dr. Sadie, who takes Moth under her wing and shows her how to avoid the worst dangers of Moth's new profession. Through all of this, Moth dreams that one More...

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Nov 30, 2011

Alexis rated it:

Surprised by how much I liked this one. It was another historical novel, set in New York in 1871. Just like The Birth House, the author uses bits of newspaper stories and recipes, and notes etc, to flesh out the story.

The main character is named Moth, and she is a 12-year-old girl who is basically sold by her mother. The story is very Dickensian and populated by gypsies, beggars, thieves and whores. Moth is a strong and believable character and she has to keep her wits and a variety More...

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Dec 06, 2011

Jodi rated it:

This was truly one of the best books I've read in a long time. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the writing, and the characters. This book takes us back to a time in New York's infancy when some forgotten children had no one to look out for them, and bad things happened to them. The story moves along quickly, and is full of high society ladies, fortune tellers, thieves, whores, a carnival barker, a doctor, society gentlemen, and a handful of lost little girls. The main voice of the book belongs t More...

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Jan 24, 2012

Zara rated it:

Ami McKay writes with storytelling ease of a young girl named “Moth” by a legendary pear tree on the crossroads of Pear Tree corner. As imaginative as this sounds, and though the novel is filled with a sort of Cirque du Soleil creativity in the trappings of the book’s characters from their costumes to their well-manufactured displays of propriety—the book is anything, but happy.

It tells of the polarity between decadence and poverty in the streets of New York in 1871, the age of myste More...

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Nov 08, 2011

Frances is currently reading it

The Virgin Cure is packed with interesting bits of history, period advertisements, and lush descriptions of dresses from Harper's Bazaar. It's a bit like leafing through a wonderful old scrapbook. It also makes me want to go out and buy a corset and gloves. Okay, maybe not the corset. (The descriptions of it are frightening).

I'm not yet finished reading the novel, but the relationship between the female physician (based on McKay's own great grandmother) and the young girl, Moth, is c More...

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Feb 05, 2012

Donna rated it:

As in The Birth House, McKay provides a unique glimpse at the plight of women in a particular period of history. In The Virgin Cure, the reader is exposed to the dismal and hopeless experiences of poor women at the turn of the twentieth century in the Bowery area of New York. Told from various perspectives, this story centres around the survival of 12-year old Moth. Abandoned and sold by her mother to an abusive lady in need of a maid, she flees to the streets filled with prostitutes and begga More...

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Jan 03, 2012

Brie rated it:

Loved this book. The author did an incredible job taking us back in time, to an era on the streets of Manhattan that I knew little of. I was immediately drawn into the story of young Moth, and found myself pining for her success in surviving the filthy streets of New York. The book had a somewhat scrapbook/journal feel, with the extra tid-bits of information lining the borders of the pages, and I loved this. It added depth and insight to the story. I couldn't put the book down.

See my More...

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Dec 03, 2011

Falice rated it:

A pretty good book overall. I had high expectations, since I really liked The Birth House. The first half was amazing, deceiving me into thinking, "Ami McKay did it again!" The narrator's personality shifted slightly after she joined the brothel, and the story kind of fell flat, becoming overly obsessed with vanity and materialism. I did not fall in love with the main character, like I did with Dora Rare, though I sympathized with Moth and felt her pain, too, from time to time. The sto More...

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Feb 17, 2012

Kathy added it

I was really looking forward to reading this book as I very much enjoyed Ami McKay's first book, Birth House. But I'm sorry to say that The Virgin Cure did not rise to the level of my expectations. It's written about a period of time I don't know much about, and presented in an interesting way - a doctor's notes are interspersed through the narrative as sort of a case study - but I just didn't find myself caring for the characters, the story, though filled with tragedy and human failings, didn More...

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Feb 08, 2012

Mary Lou rated it:

I was intrigued by McKay’s family connection with the story, the great-grandmother who as a doctor in New York tended to indigent women. But Dr. Sadie in the book was too perfect to be real, and the places where the narrative switched to her voice/observations felt intrusive and slowed the story. The book was a page turner, but it engaged on a soap opera sort of level. Despite the fact that the story dealt with a very real and distressing situation, it didn’t seem real. McKay was more sure o More...

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Oct 29, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

This novel really was amazing and deserves 5 stars. I couldn't put it down. I really enjoyed The Birth House, but I think that McKay's second book is even more compelling. The characters were lovely, intriguing, compelling and engaging. It was hard to believe the age of the young heroine and to read the life that she lived in New York, in the late 1800s. Such poverty, such wealth and such a discrepency. Men are not depicted in a favourable way in this novel, at all! Great setting, great s More...

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