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I quite enjoyed this book. It took me a little while to get into it, though. It probably wasn't until I was about halfway through that I really felt enthralled by the plot and the characters. I didn't really know what to expect when I started reading this. All I heard was people raving about it, but I'd never gotten a sense of what kind of genre it was. It's essentially a romance, but a higher class of romance. I would liken it to The Time Traveller's Wife, in the sense that it's well-written and doesn't really fit snugly into any one category.

I thought Sarah Gruen's character writing was fairly strong. However, all of the female characters are passive and uninteresting. It's quite disappointing that Gruen has succumbed to these gender stereotypes. Marlena could have been a much more interesting character. Instead, she remains passive throughout the whole book, only acting as a result of the actions of other characters. And as another reviewer on here pointed out, Marlena and Jacob's affair is made excusable by the fact that August is essentially a crazy tyrant. It would have been more interesting and believable if they just did the wrong thing with no excuse or justification.

This book strongly reminded me of the TV show Carnivale. I don't know if Gruen wrote this before or after it screened, but there are definitely some similarities. Then again, I might just think that because I have nothing else to base my knowledge of vintage circus life on.

Regardless, an enjoyable book.