Book #55 of 2018:
Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch
The opening of this story about a boy working for a Victorian-era animal trader lulls a reader with Dickensian charm, but it all turns absolutely brutal by the end. After a pleasant start our urchin hero sails out of London in search of a Komodo dragon, only to find himself shipwrecked and slowly starving to death in a lifeboat with an ever-dwindling crew. It’s all very well-written, but in agonizingly feverish detail that is a sharp turn from the early chapters and definitely not for the faint of heart. An excellent, uncomfortable read.
★★★★☆
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