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Jamrach's Menagerie (2011)

by Carol Birch(Favorite Author)

3.54 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

038553440X (ISBN13: 9780385534406)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Doubleday

review 1: Started brightly, drifted and then sorted itself out eventually. Jaffy is a youngster with urchin sensibilities, finding himself working for Mr. Jamrach, an importer of exotic animals and going to sea in search of a mythical creature. What begins as a novel of enjoyable Victorian whimsical quest takes a much darker turn in an overlong middle section. Jaffy's first person narrative removes one element of the drama, and while there are some memorable passages and well-imagined situations, it failed to grip me.
review 2: The critics liked this book, but I did not. It tells the story of a nineteenth-century street urchin named Jaffy Brown. Following an encounter with an escaped tiger, Jaffy goes to work for animal importer Charles Jamrach. However, Jaffy is caug... moreht by the lure of the sea and is recruited on a whaling ship for an expedition to capture a so-called dragon – actually a large reptile. Lots of bad things happen and the ship is eventually sunk by a waterspout. I was surprised that the author was a woman since it seemed like such a young men and the sea story. less

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