Book Bloomer

There is nothing wrong with the writing itself, I just did not connect with the plot as I had hoped. It’s a very creative and interesting idea, but there is too much going on which disconnects depth from the storyline and characters.

This novel is about a young girl named Coralie, the daughter of a horrible man who runs the Museum of Extraordinary Things in Coney Island. Coralie was born with a birth defect that gave her webbed hands, which her father takes advantage of and forces her to swim the Hudson River at night – spreading fear that a monster is lurking in its depths.

Meanwhile, a Russian immigrant, Eddie Cohen, has his own story unraveling as he investigates the death of a young woman from the jewish community he abandoned years ago. Through her death, he exposes unsettling details about the treatment of immigrants during this time and the sad conditions in which they were forced to work for very little pay.

The investigation of the woman’s death leads Eddie to Coralie’s father and his love for Coralie instantly sparks. She returns that same love for him and begins to realize the evil that lies within her father (if he even truly is her father). I won’t give away the ending, but I will let you know it includes fire, death, truth, and love.

The problem for me with this novel was that there were two different storylines happening at the same time intertwined by the forced connection of the young woman found dead by the river. Hoffman did a wonderful job developing Eddie and giving readers an insight into his past and why he’s become who he is. However, the love between him and Coralie was too sudden for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good love story, but I want to feel and believe it as well. I wish this had been divided into two separate novels. I would have loved to read a whole book just on Eddie Cohen and his past as well as the narrative of other Russian immigrants during a time where immigrant workers were not treated fairly. This is what drew me in and was extremely interesting, but it got lost amongst the other story going on about the Museum of Extraordinary Things.

I’ll end this review by saying that there still was insightful themes between immigrants at that time and the “creatures” of the Museum. I’ll leave that open to interpretation for other readers and would love to here what you uncover.

As always, happy reading.