This was yet another dollar store book find, destined to become mine due to the title and the arresting cover design (side note, this will be my choice for Yellow in the Color-Coded Reading Challenge):
I didn't realize until I read the Afterword that this book was based on a true story, and a real person, Julia Pastrana, who was part of the burgeoning "freak show" circuit in the mid-1800s. The author makes her come alive in the book, and she is a very sympathetic character. Her manager/husband Theo not so much, although he is humanized a great deal as well. Both characters are given complex motivations for their actions. I will say that the author sometimes shifted the third-person point of view from Julia to Theo very quickly, so that a few times it was initially hard to follow whose mind/point of view we were eavesdropping on.
One thing I felt unsure of was the tie-in story set in the 1980s. On the one hand, it kept me guessing - the slight misdirection was well done, and I didn't figure it all out until the end. On the other hand, it took a fair amount of time to get where it was going, and I didn't feel particularly connected to the characters. The end result, however, brought tears to my eyes and was singularly heartbreaking. So in the end I guess it was worth it.
All in all, a fast read that has left me with mental images I'll likely never be rid of. Recommended.
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