Review: Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch

I picked this one up randomly at my library because I liked the cover and the promise of a carnival setting. 

It details the story of Julia Pastrana, a young woman in the 19th century freak show scene. Julia was born in Mexico an abandoned by her mother due to her excessive hair growth. She was taken in by the local governor, but when propositioned by a showman to be his main attraction she leaves Mexico and starts a touring life that continued until her death. 

The book is based on the true story of Julia Pastrana, a so-called “bearded woman”. In reality she was probably suffering from what we now know as hypertrichosis, a condition that left her entire body and face covered with hair. 

In the book we follow her as she tours the world becoming a major attraction wherever she goes. But in reality she longs for a quiet family life and hopes to achieve this one day. The dream seems about to come true when her manager decides to propose marriage to her and she ends up getting pregnant. However, the baby dies soon after birth and Julia only outlasts him by a couple of days due to complications from the birth. 

I would say that this book is not so much about Julia as about Theo, her manager-turned-husband. After her death we follow him and his morally questionable decisions. He decides to donate the remains of mother and child to an Institute, that has them both embalmed/stuffed, and then he claims them back in order to take them on another tour, showcasing their remains for money. After a while he learns of another “bearded lady” and promptly decides to marry her and take her touring along with the mummified remains. His new wife, Marie, turns out to be less compliant than Julia, but they make a life of it together until Theo slowly descends into madness and ultimately dies in an asylum. 

To be honest I thought this book was quite boring. After a while I decided to go to Goodreads and read some reviews to see if it was worth continuing. It was only here that I learned it was based on a true story and I decided to keep going. But in the end I was mainly bored. It dragged out interminably and I was not really interested in any of the characters. Unless you count disgust as interest. Theo seems like a despicable human being. He marries Julia mainly to keep her with him so he can make money off of her and when she and the baby die he has very few qualms about having them stuffed and then proceeds to take them on tour. He then marries another woman in order to try and repeat his “success” with Julia and make more money. 

I honestly don’t know why I bothered to continue with this book. It was longwinded and boring and used a cheap plot twist for shock value, when there was really no point to that specific plot line. 

I gave this book 1 star out of 5 on Goodreads.