Take a photo of a barcode or cover
leahbrarian 's review for:
The Circus of Stolen Dreams
by Lorelei Savaryn
This was pretty fast-paced although it had a bit of an old-fashioned children's lit vibe, with Alice in Wonderland atmosphere in particular. However, I found the writing a bit simplistic, even for middle grade, and the characters somewhat lacking in depth and roundedness. There was also a very heavy Message feeling to a lot of the text, as if it was more concerned with Teaching A Lesson regarding how to deal with sadness and trauma to the point where it overshadowed story.
Perhaps this is just a case of me being outside the target audience and this will appeal to young people, and I can certainly see that I'm an outlier in terms of the reviews here, but I found it a fairly poorly constructed and saccharine.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC.
Perhaps this is just a case of me being outside the target audience and this will appeal to young people, and I can certainly see that I'm an outlier in terms of the reviews here, but I found it a fairly poorly constructed and saccharine.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC.