another amazing read by Alice Hoffman. I really enjoyed the setting of this novel. The author did a fantastic job of painting a picture in the readers mind and transporting the reader to another time and place with extraordinary people.

This arrived in the mail today. Thank you!

Coralie grew up in her father's exhibits of the wonderful and strange, playing a mermaid with her webbed hands and a fake tail. But as she grows older, she begins to realize that all is not well in her tiny world and that her father is not the sort of person she can respect. As she takes part in his developing new hoaxes and and wishes for aspects of a normal life, her budding inner rebel latches onto a young photographer she spies while swimming.

This was a very engaging story. I finished it in two days as I raced alongside Coralie's awakening. I think the feeling of discovering that our parents are flawed humans is a well-known one for everyone, and Hoffman does a great job of taking this familiar sensation and expanding on it to an extreme. I enjoy fiction that explores things this way.

I also very much enjoyed many of the side characters, particularly Raymond Morris and and the coachman with the secret name and shady past(we do learn it, but I don't want to spoil future readers!)

I've promised this book in the Wishlist Tag Game and am waiting on an address.

Send out as another Wishlist Tag

Received in the mail earlier in the week. Thanks for the tag, and for the bonus BC labels!

ETA 12-9-16: Promised to spoiledrotten in the Wish List Tag game.

Finished this one tonight. I very much enjoyed it. Hoffman's writing is beautiful and descriptive and her storytelling is at once thoughtful and exciting. The era in which the story is set is fascinating and I'm interested to learn more about the historical events depicted in it. While there is pain and tragedy throughout the tale, there is also hope and the triumph of love. Good entertainment!

This was my first time reading Alice Hoffman and it certainly won't be the last. I look forward to seeing what other stories she has told.

I have promised this to spoiledrotten in the Wish List Tag game and hope to send it along soon. Thank you again, emmejo, for sharing this one!

Thank you glade1 for this book! I look forward to it!
08/19/17 on reserve for perryfran for the wishlist tag game, will read then send.

The first half of the book is told almost as if they were two separate stories, it isn't until way past the middle that the tale picks up and the story becomes one. I do agree the the time frame was fascinating and the story itself very interesting. I did find it very deification to get through the first half of the book.

Sending off to Perryfran as part of the wishlist tag game.

Thanks for sending this wishlist book...I usually enjoy Hoffman's novels so will be looking forward to reading this one.

Another enjoyable novel from Hoffman. I have read several of her books and have really enjoyed most of them. This one takes place in New York and Brooklyn in 1911 and is told from the perspectives of Coralie Sardie, the daughter of the owner of the Coney Island attraction — The Museum of Extraordinary Things — and Eddie Cohen, a Russian Jewish immigrant who has left his community and is striving to work as a photographer. Coralie is watched over by her beloved but acid-scarred family housekeeper, Maureen, and lives with her father above the museum. At first Coralie loves and respects her father but on her tenth birthday, he escorts her through the exhibit for the first time, and he also puts her on display as “The Human Mermaid.” Born with webbed fingers, Coralie, an expert swimmer, spends her days in a tank wearing her mermaid suit. Later as the business starts to fail, her father arranges special showings, during which adolescent Coralie must swim naked for invited male audiences. Coralie longs to leave but in the mean time is comforted by Maureen. Then Coralie meets Eddie Cohen and her life seems to change as she falls in love with him.

The story is told between two tragic fires that occurred in 1911 — The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and Coney Island's Dreamland fire. Eddie photographs and is haunted by images of the Triangle fire and then he becomes involved in locating a young woman who goes missing after the fire. This eventually leads him to Coralie and her dire circumstances at the museum.

I thought this novel was very engaging and provided a lot of the history and living conditions of early 20th century New York. I would recommend this one and I'll be reading more of Hoffman. I also read another compelling novel about Coney Island several years ago — Dreamland by Kevin Baker that I would also highly recommend for anyone wanting to know more about Coney Island and its inhabitants of the early part of the twentieth century.

Sending to bamaforever as a RABCK. Enjoy!

Thank you so much perryfran! I love Alice Hoffman.