Review: Church of Marvels

Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Church of Marvels follows four people in 1895 New York. Sylvan is a privvy cleaner who finds a baby left for dead on his rounds. Belle and Odile Church are twins who grew up in the the Coney Island Sideshow whose lives are turned upside down by a fire, Alphie is a young woman imprisoned in Blackwell's Lunatic Asylum. These four characters all from very different backgrounds have secrets that are revealed throughout the story and whose lives are intertwined in the most unusual way.

I ended up really enjoying this book but the first half seemed slow and extremely mysterious. Each chapter is from a different character's point of view, except for Belle's. Although I followed the story in the first half, I just didn't know how these characters would end up interacting and it became frustrating at times. But once you get through that first part, the story sails and I thought it was quite a page turner. I loved the ending.

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