Harold > Recent Status Updates

This author hates Houdini and it gets clearer every time he has to write about the man. Like right now he seems to think Houdini, raised from a young boy in the US, had only a fractured understanding of English fifty years later, and ~clearly~ had ghostwriters doing all his writing. (I can’t believe I’m still only at 38%. Move!!!)

CONTRACTIONS. SOMEONE. ANYONE. USE A CONTRACTION.

So far it is fairing better than The Diviners. Oh, but my circus traditionalist self is having minor jitters, anyway.

WARNING: Circus purist/traditionalist reads a novel that is anything but. I put this off for years. May it have better luck than The Diviners.

So I'm almost 100 pages in and I'm at a total loss as to why Archer's parents, especially his mother, treat him like Harry is treated by the Dursleys. WHAT tendencies? Instead of intrigue (should I feel intrigued?), I'm annoyed and confused.

There was never ever human remains found beneath Maggie and Kate Fox's home. I've read their biographies.

So much research. Except when circuses are mentioned. Then it goes CLUNK. Sam wouldn't say he fell in with a circus. He'd say he joined out. On a circus, not in. IF SHE CAN OVERSTUFF THIS NOVEL, I CAN NITPICK.

It's just so hard when you're pretty sure the author left in every single piece of research, to the detriment of pacing.

It's like I'm being hit over the head with THIS IS THE 1920S THIS IS THE 1920S THIS IS THE 1920S THIS IS THE 1920S. Having Paul Whiteman on the radio was the final punch. I might be dead now.

Look, I so love the 20s, but the dialogue is like reading a list of 20's slang. No one talks in 90% slang 100% of the time!!!!!!

This book is CRAZY.