The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman

Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.

The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.

When I made it to almost the halfway point of reading this book I wanted to give up - I just wasn't engaged in the story it didn't excite me, and the characters felt a bit bland. I wish I could say that it picked up (as sometimes it has when I was struggling to read some other books) but it didn't, and I stuck with it to the end out of curiosity, but I had to force myself to do so.

I don't know how anyone can compare it to The Night Circus, it doesn't even come close, mainly because how the two main characters fell in love was barely believable. I think that's why I didn't really enjoy it, because I had such high expectations. 

The actual writing was good, its just a shame the story didn't engage me. 

Read my review on Goodreads