With over 1,700 reviews logged in here, I’ll add my two cents worth.
If you’re reading this as “newest first”, let me warn you that most reviews contain spoilers about which you are not always warned.
This book was recommended by a friend and I found it to be an easy and enjoyable reading experience. That being said, I suggest that anyone, as an individual reader, will take from it what they will. I gave it 4 stars because it just doesn’t reach my standard of a great piece of literature or really in-depth study of something. From an enjoyment/entertainment perspective it is 4.5 or more, just not 5.0.
A lot depends on the mood you’re in when you read this book. Also, your expectations can help or hurt your appraisal of the work.
This book is part romance, part mystery, part documentary and part sociological treatise. It recaps an aging man’s life, mostly focusing on his young adult experience against the seedy backdrop of a traveling circus during the Great Depression.
Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional! If you have fought growing up, and if you ever had a romanticized vision of running away with the circus, you may understand this book. You may not like it, but you will come to some thought or understanding of what the author was trying to say. You may lose some illusions, though, which you might have wished you could have maintained.
Many of the negative reviews here criticize the language and sexually graphic descriptions of some scenes. The particular scenes probably accurately reflect the circumstances of the times. So what else is new?
These instances are almost glossed over. While not appropriate for children, the treatment fits into the docu-drama which debunks any romanticized vision of circus life.
As a novel, I didn’t know where the story was ultimately going. One confrontational segment, given much emphasis, seemed unexplained or unresolved. There was a twist at the end which is thought provoking.
Maybe you’re never
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