Review: Pantomime by Laura Lam

Pantomime by Laura Lam

• Pub. Date: February 5, 2013
• Publisher:Angry Robot
• Pages:400
• Goodreads/Amazon/Book Depository

R. H. Ragona’s Circus of Magic is the greatest circus of Ellada. Nestled among the glowing blue Penglass—remnants of a mysterious civilization long gone—are wonders beyond the wildest imagination. It’s a place where anything seems possible, where if you close your eyes you can believe that the magic and knowledge of the vanished Chimaera is still there. It’s a place where anyone can hide.

Iphigenia Laurus, or Gene, the daughter of a noble family, is uncomfortable in corsets and crinoline, and prefers climbing trees to debutante balls. Micah Grey, a runaway living on the streets, joins the circus as an aerialist’s apprentice and soon becomes the circus’s rising star.

But Gene and Micah have balancing acts of their own to perform, and a secret in their blood that could unlock the mysteries of Ellada.

Review: It is going to be so hard to write this review without giving away spoilers. And seeing how the blurb was obviously purposely made to be misleading to hide a major twist in the story i'm going to also do my best to stay all secretive and not give anything up.

The story is told in two povs Micah in the present who has just joined the circus and Gene in the past who is the daughter of a noble and very unhappy with her life. I loved Micah and Gene, amazing characters who were very well fleshed out and I felt a world of sympathy for them and their situation. Honestly all the characters in the book were done amazingly well and one of my favorites besides Micah/Gene who stood out was Drystan. He had his own secrets as well and I liked the friendship he built with Micah although there is still some mystery surrounding him that I can't wait to find out about in the next book.

I loved every bit of the circus it was eerie and fascinating all at once. Then there were the "freaks" of the circus that Micah worked with and Lam did a really great job in making them very diverse and unique in their own ways. Also there was magic involved in Pantomime unfortunately it was a little disappointing since we just get a little glimpse of it here and there and the author doesn't go deeper into that aspect of it in this book but it's obvious that we will definitely learn more about it in the second novel.

Overall Pantomime was very unexpected and just different in many ways from what I normally read  and Lam was not afraid to take this novel in a direction not to many YA books have gone. The world building, writing and the main characters were done very well and I am looking forward to see how the second novel develops especially with that huge cliffhanger at the end

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