The Book of Speculation in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Feb 06, 2018 Melanie rated it really liked it

Shelves: family, weird, magical-realism

This was such a long, slow read for me, but I really enjoyed it. I loved the synchronicity and the history and the interesting tidbits about the carnival. It had such an overarching sadness, though, that often it felt hard to want to read it - it dragged me down into that feeling with the doomed, damaged characters. Slow reading made it really stick, though, and kept it from becoming overwhelming. The writing is lovely and the images she puts in your head are great.

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Apr 23, 2015 Astrid Lim rated it liked it

Pretty good although I expected more mysteries and puzzles and not so much of curses and superstition. The family history of circus and carnival performers is pretty interesting, but i don't really buy the tarrot cards plot. And i wished more details about The Book of Speculations will be explained. ...more

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Feb 16, 2016 Alison rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, dcpl_elibrary

This was great! It's the story of Simon, whose mother and sister were and are involved in a traveling circus. Simon recieved a book from a stranger, which turns out to be an account of a traveling circus that his family has ties to. As he unravels his heritage, with the goal of figuring out how to prevent his sister from drowning herself (as seems to happen with the women in his family) his life and house unravel around him. It was a wonderful story with great characters, I very much enjoyed it. ...more

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Oct 28, 2018 Rebecca rated it it was ok

Shelves: bookclub-read

I didn’t find the characters likeable and there seemed to be large jumps in the plot. Two stars instead of one because (1) I at least did want to read to the end to find out what happened and (2) it was a little gothic and fit into this time of year.

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