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overstimulatedmomreads 's review for:
Home of the American Circus
by Allison Larkin
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The very first book our club read was The People We Keep. It was loved by many but fell short for me. I was excited to read this book in hopes of a redemption. However, this one just didn’t do it for me either.
I have learned that a book has to be very engaging for me to enjoy a character-driven story. This was the SLOWEST first half of a book I think I’ve ever read and the slowest character development. I wanted to give up on it so many times. The second half of the book was much more engaging and kept me reading. This one is over 400 pages and could have easily been trimmed by about 100 pages. I felt like many parts of the story were not realistic. To be honest, I’m kind of pissed off that I suffered through the slowest character development of all time to be left with an ending as unsatisfying as this one. I needed an epilogue for the epilogue.
Now to be more positive, I do think the author wrote beautifully at times. There were a lot of quotes that stuck out to me. While I didn’t enjoy some of the characters (her sister and BIL are total POS), I did feel connected to Freya, the main character. I always love a good found family aspect and cozy small-town vibe. I think that there are many who would really love this book. It just wasn’t for me.