I feel a little weird writing a critical review about this book. It was strongly recommended to me by several people who said it was “a great story” so I was expecting something that would truly captivate me and pull me in. For me, it simply fell short.
I think that a tremendous amount of time and effort went into the research involved for this book and that should not go unnoticed. If you’re looking for a book that clearly depicts the Great Depression and/or circus life during that time period – by all means you should pick up the book. I do not know a tremendous amount about that time period to tell you if it was fully accurate, but I feel that it did give me a pretty good picture of what circus life would be like in that era. The photographs installed at the beginning of each chapter also did a great job connecting the story with the reality of traveling circuses of the time. The language probably could have corresponded a bit more, but in terms of the spirit and energy of the book versus the time period in which it takes place, I think it was pretty spot on.
However, I really had trouble connecting with the characters. They simply did not seem like well-rounded, real people to me. I understand that the characters should be eccentric considering they are individuals traveling with a circus, but not to the point where they should seem artificial. Their emotional reactions to various tumultuous situations seemed unrealistic – based on having experienced similar situations in my life. The psychological repercussions would have been huge for a lot of the major conflicts that occur in the book – especially during the time of the Great Depression – but I did not feel the degree of inner struggle within the characters was well represented throughout the story. The characters would get sad or angry, but they seemed to sedate their feelings pretty darn quick.
The depiction of the main character in his old age, however, seemed more realistic to me. I thought the scenes
The First Years 2