Little
Ratings5
Average rating3.2
The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud.
In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do.
In the tradition of Gregory Maguire's Wicked and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Edward Carey's Little is a darkly endearing cavalcade of a novel—a story of art, class, determination, and how we hold on to what we love.
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A delightfully macabre retelling of Madam Tussaud's life. One thing to note is that since this is still the tale of an actual human life, as eventful as it was, the story doesn't really follow a traditional story structure. Which meant that I made a long pause in the reading around the middle of the book due to its pacing. But once I picked the book back up, it didn't take long to dive back in - Edward Carey knows what to do with words.
Torn between 3 and 4 stars, since the writing was top-notch, regardless of the midway slog. I never realised how fascinating and eventful Madam Tussaud's life was.
This book! This book ... I was going to love this book. It was one of my most anticipated releases back in 2018, and I held off reading it. I was worried my extremely high expectations would not be met ending in disappointment. Fast forward two years .... my expectations were not met, ending in disappointment.
Having said that - you may love it. It's a largely fictionalized account of the early life of Madam Tussauds, her experience in Paris , Versailles and a tumultuous ride through the French Revolution.
