The Museum of Extraordinary Things

Whimsical at times but with steel and fire throughout, The Museum Of Extraordinary Things is an Extraordinary Thing itself. The characters are built with depth and feeling and the tale itself pulls you along at a cracking pace. If you love reading you will, in this reader's opinion love this book. It crosses stylistic boundaries as part fantasy, part thriller and part historical fiction and draws you in to its world of magic, science and intrigue with ease. At times some of the scenes depicted are definitely not for kids but at the same time it manages to elicit child like feelings of wonder at some of the exhibits described herein. This is the first novel I've read from Alice Hoffman and I shall be looking to see if she has anymore as soon as I push 'submit' on this review. 5/5 for me all day long.

The book relates a history of the early development of New York that is unknown to the majority of readers in the UK and possibly in the USA. It is totally fascinating - more so than the story of the fictional characters in the book. Not that the fictional story is not good. It is - but somehow, the major character is the early and developing city of New York. So, my sincere congratulations go to the author for the fantastic research task that underlies the fictional story. I doubt it could be bettered.

I absolutely loved this book. It reminded me of two books I love, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. I loved the setting. I really enjoyed fiction set in circuses, freak shows, funland’s and those sorts of places. They have huge potential. The author brings the setting to life. Coney Island and the sideshows and exhibits become a place of mystery and wonder if a little sinister and creepy. I loved the characters. I liked how the novel alternated between Coralie and Eddie’s perspective, showing how their two lives become gradually, fatally linked. Coralie and Eddie are great characters. I also loved the other people Coralie encounters growing up at her father’s museum. Coralie’s father is a horrible person. His exhibit is little more than a freak show, and one he rules with sheer cruelty. I was horrified when Coralie, with her deformed hands becomes a mermaid at the museum. What kind of monster could do that to his child. He does worse and my flesh crawled at times. The Museum of Extraordinary Things is not an easy book to read. Coralie’s father is a monster. The book is, however, a joy to read.

When I started this, I though it was great. A sure five star book. The writing is fantastic and full of imagination and the setting is conjured up wonderfully. I continued thinking this right up to about the halfway mark. However, as the book goes on I started getting, to be honest, confused. Why is each chapter divided into a first person and third person section? It seems there's no reason. Each chapter also seems to be from the perspective of one of the two main characters, but every now and then slips into the frame of someone else. There's a lot of mystery hinted at throughout the book, but none of it turns into anything tangible. Same goes for a lot of the plot strands. They're there and then they're either tied up or left unsatisfactorily and you're left wondering what was the point. This isn't the type of book to really focus too much on plot holes, but I will say there are some points where characters act completely at odds with how they've been so far portrayed purely for the author's convenience and that there is a great disconnect between what we're led to believe will happen early on in the book and what actually comes to pass. As mentioned, I thought the writing was so, so good. It's just a shame it had nowhere to go.

This was a strange book, as you'd expect from the title, and from Alice Hoffman. It was magical and enchanting, but it was also pretty dark, and in places quite heart-wrenching. The two main characters, Coralie and Eddie, get alternating first person narrative to tell their back story, and this worked really well. Both are in their own way outcasts, and both are rebels. There's an inevitability in the writing - you know they're going to meet, you know they are going to fall in love, but you also believe they will be doomed. I love this fairy tale quality to Alice Hoffman's writing, they way she invokes the atmosphere you remember from the likes of The Ice Queen or Red Riding Hood, of beauty condemned, but what takes her stories way beyond fairy tale is the complexity of her characters. Eddie and Coralie are not the 'goodies', they are twisted and tortured by their history, they are vengeful and they are also at times irritatingly slow to react, weak even. In other words, real! I was less sure about Coralie's father, the Professor, who was very much a classic 'baddy', and I'm not sure why. I didn't understand his possessiveness or his motivation, I didn't buy that it was just greed. Okay, so he saw every human as a potential scientific experiment, thought only about how he could exploit them, but if this was the case, why did he go to the trouble of making up Coralie's history, inventing a pretty story and giving her a set of pearls, which implies he cares about her, or at least cares about her opinion of him. It was a bit of a false note that kept playing every time he walked onto the page, for me. There were a vast array of characters who formed a backdrop to the story, a bit like a tableau vivant - they were there, they were distracting and they were unsettling, but they didn't actually play an active part. Though of course they did, because they were the backdrop to the story, the perpetual, ever-changing reminder to the reader, that we have a very narrow view of what 'normal' is. I've noticed in a few reviews that readers found the 'freak show' descriptions cruel or just too difficult to take. But I thought the understated way Alice Hoffman wrote these characters was incredibly effective - by simply presenting them, not making too much of them, you thought about them a lot more - if that makes sense. There was a deal more history in the story than usual, covering Coney Island and the fire that destroyed it, photography, and the fires in the garment district in 1911. At times, I couldn't help feeling that the political point was being hammered home just a little too powerfully, or that injustices she had come across in her research were being allowed to take over the book a bit too much. Is that the fault of my expectations? Maybe. It was odd, because the history was exploitative, repressive, vile, in some places simply mortifying, but in a way, the events themselves were emotionally downplayed, and what should have been heart-wrenching, for example, simply wasn't. Maybe this is because Alice Hoffman likes to present things and let you decide? Not sure. I love Alice Hoffman's books. I really enjoyed this one, and I will definitely go back and read it again. But before that, I'm going to rediscover some old favourites of hers, because this has reminded me of how much I enjoyed those too.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. The writing is quite lyrical and the characters endearing. The plot was ingenious - a mixture of the magical and also historical fiction with actual events. Though this museum may not have actually existed, the amusement parks mentioned did actually exist and much, if not most, of the historical events really took place. Such a pleasure to read I highly recommend this story to everyone, especially New Yorkers.

Fantastic book! What a fabulous story. It encouraged me to look up a map of New York and research places and historical events such as the Garment Factory Fire. New York itself becomes a character in this novel, constantly engaging you and enticing you into the secret past of her 19th century self. I love stories that weave historical facts into fiction and take me to places I have never been - especially when they are composed and as beautifully written as Alice Hoffman who keeps you engrossed in her work. This story has a different tone and pace to her previous novel 'The Dovekeepers;' an impressive novel of the siege of Masada. I fully recommend this novel to readers who love the world of new and extrodinary things.

The historical aspect was very interesting and obviously well researched by Alice Hoffmann, I could not get warm to the main characters and found various parts of the book annoying and repugnant.The characters were very black and white. The professor totally dispeccable and Coralie too meek, almost until the end.The sometimes objective and sometimes subjective view of the main protagonists was made clear with different typefaces but was I found tedious.Not her best book.

1911 est une année tumultueuse à New York. Tandis que les syndicats se révoltent contre les conditions de travail épouvantables imposées aux travailleurs, les riches se retranchent à l'abri des belles façades de la 5ème avenue. Deux incendies dramatiques surviennent presque coup sur coup: le premier dans une usine de vêtements où les couturières enfermées là par leurs patrons n'ont pas d'autre choix que de se jeter par les fenêtres ou de brûler vives, le second dans un gigantesque parc d'attractions de Coney Island où les flammes libèrent toute une ménagerie exotique que les forces de l'ordre sont contraintes d'abattre. Non loin de là, les flots de l'Hudson coulent noirs, glacés et insondables, à travers des marécages qui se dépeuplent rapidement de leur faune et seront bientôt grignotés par l'expansion implacable de la ville. Alors qu'il était enfant, Ezekiel Cohen a fui les pogroms en Ukraine avec son père. Désormais, il n'a plus que mépris pour cet homme brisé. Tournant le dos à sa foi, il se coupe les cheveux, se rebaptise Eddie et devient l'apprenti d'un photographe solitaire. Mais il a toujours eu un don pour retrouver les choses et les gens perdus. Après l'incendie du Triangle, un ami de son père vient lui demander de chercher sa fille Hanna, qui aurait dû travailler à l'usine ce jour-là mais ne s'est jamais présentée à son poste et a mystérieusement disparu. Une nuit, sur les bords de l'Hudson, Eddie croise la route d'une sirène qui se met à hanter ses rêves. C'est Coralie, la fille du sinistre professeur Sardie. Exposée comme un monstre dans son Musée des Créatures Extraordinaires, contrainte à s'exhiber de façon dégradante lors de soirées privées, elle ne rêve que de s'enfuir... Ca faisait très longtemps que je n'avais pas lu un roman d'Alice Hoffman, et je me demande bien pourquoi j'avais négligé cette auteure qui sait créer des atmosphères si particulières, à la fois tragiques et empreintes de magie. "The museum of extraordinary things"est une oeuvre dense, qui restitue son contexte historique à travers deux thèmes principaux: l'agitation sociale et l'opposition entre l'eau et le feu. Face à la violence des humains et des éléments, les deux héros sont, chacun à leur façon, en quête de leur identité et de leur place dans le monde. Ils ne les trouveront qu'en renonçant à ce qu'ils croyaient savoir de leurs propres origines. Autour d'eux, Alice Hoffman met en place toute une galerie de personnages secondaires frappants: les "monstres" du Musée, tellement plus beaux dans leur singularité, plus dignes dans leur vulnérabilité que le soi-disant scientifique qui les exploite; l'ermite du marécage qui a un loup pour animal de compagnie et une réputation d'homme dangereux, mais qui pleure en secret sa femme morte depuis des décennies; le cocher au passé criminel qui parle aux oiseaux et n'aspire plus qu'à se racheter; la servante rousse au visage brûlé à l'acide qui sert de mère à Coralie; l'homme-loup amoureux des livres; le Magicien de Manhattan, personnage charismatique qu'Eddie prend pour un charlatan mais qui ne l'est peut-être pas tant que ça; la fille de riche propriétaire que sa famille veut faire enfermer à l'asile parce qu'elle milite pour la cause des femmes et des ouvriers... Les deux incendies sont des scènes proprement hallucinantes. Celui de l'usine, avec les couturières qui se jettent par les fenêtres et Manhattan envahi par les cendres, rappelle de façon poignante les images du 11 septembre 2001. Celui du parc d'attractions, avec les animaux sauvages tout à coup libérés dans les rues en flammes de Coney Island, a une qualité presque surréaliste. Et bien que l'histoire se déroule il y a plus d'un siècle, l'opposition sanglante entre les riches et les pauvres trouve hélas bien des échos dans l'actualité. Un roman riche et envoûtant à plus d'un titre.

This title really fascinated me. I liked the way the story unfolded. That period just before the First World War in and around New York City, is full of pathos, hope and prosperity. I tend to like that pictured in a literary way. I listened to this book, and it was great to have a voice for each main character. I have good thoughts about this book and I’ll recommend it readily.