The Museum of Extraordinary Things

   This is another book that was on my pile for a long time.  It was part of my Barnes and Noble settlement.  ( There is little that makes me happier than $140 in free books from Barnes and noble after all the shit they put me through!)   At any rate.....

I really have to think about this one.  This is a story about Coralie and her father who run a museum of sorts of extraordinary things.  Sometimes the things are fossils, rocks, skeletons... and sometimes they are living creatures.   Coralie is just a child at the beginning of the story, and her father never lets her into the museum.   Then, when she is finally old enough, she discovers that she is to become an exhibit. 

The cruelty that Coralie suffers at the hands of her father was extremely difficult to read.   He was a real charlatan.  I know that seems like an oxymoron, but there you have it.  

I didn't love the story.   I had difficulty reading it for the above stated reasons.  It shifts often , not just from past to present, but also from the perspective of the different characters.  It was distracting.  I would just get involved with one character and then off we go to talk about something else.  The back stories were necessary to both character and plot development but it was done in such a manner that it felt like I was watching the Blair Witch project all over again.

My favorite character was Raymond Morris, aka The Wolfman.   Raymond was born with an abundance of hair on his face.  He travels to New York where he believes that he will be able to walk freely, accepted but that is not the case.  Instead of acceptance he finds bigotry, hatred and fear.  It's heartbreaking.

I really wanted to love this book but I didn't.   I gave it three stars because it has something and if you can get over the cruelty and the sadness, you will find what that is.