Geek Love

5:

I don't have the way with words to wax poetic about how much I loved this book. This book was twisted and gross in ways that I didn't expect, coming in from just seeing the title on a subreddit and a comment saying it was “insane”. They were right.

I've never read something like this before. I can't give this anything under five stars, because it's not that I couldn't put it down, but more like I couldn't pick up anything else while reading it; it permeated my thoughts so thoroughly, I had to put the rest of my readings on hold until I was done. And even then, it took me a whole week to finish because my neck hurt from all the head turning I had going on.

2.5 ⭐️ RTC??

I can see this being a book I go back to over the years and finding myself delving deeper and understanding more and more with every read. I'm astonished and disgusted and grieving.

Ah! A circus book. These are always nice, aren't they? There's some romance, some kind tender moments, some razzle dazzle! No, not in this one. This one just made me sad. All worth it to read that final couple of lines.

Tough one to review, with so much going on. But - make do with a short introduction.

Olympia Binewski is our narrator and protagonist in this novel. She is a bald, hunchback, albino dwarf. Her elder brother Arturo (the Aquaboy) has flippers rather than limbs. Her sisters - Iphigenia and Electra are Siamese twins, sharing hip and legs, and play piano particularly well. Her younger brother Fortunado appears quite normal, but is, in fact telekinetic.

And the reason for this ‘interesting' family? When the Binewski Family Circus took a downwards turn with popularity, owner Al and his wife Lily decided to breed their own stable of human oddities. Making a hobby of medicine, Al prepared a complex cocktail of drugs during each pregnancy, and with these stunning results, he must have been on to something.

This is a far reaching story, an excellent, albeit somewhat horrific novel, which tells of Carnie life in the backwaters of the USA, of a powerful cult, family devotion, sibling jealousy, murderous plotting and a complex family. Probably equal parts horror and comedy, which pushes the boundaries of decency at every opportunity.

Excellent at 4 stars.

5 out of 5 stars
I had been looking forward to reading this book for a while and when I saw it was available to borrow as an ebook from the library, I got it right away! A lot of the people I follow on here only thought the book was mediocre, so while I thought the premise sounded great I kept my expectations low. I was blown away. From the first chapter this book had me hooked! It took me about a week to finish, but it was interesting the entire way through.
Let me give a brief summary for those who have never heard of this book: It is about a family who breed their own freakshow. Crystal Lil, the mother, takes various drugs and other substances in order to give birth to deformed children who will be raised to become acts in the show. The narrator, Olympia, is an albino hunchbacked dwarf and we follow her story through two narratives: one in the present and one during the past where we learn about her and her siblings life in the circus. Both narratives were very well done and I do not think I would have changed the book in any other way.
The writing style was great, the characters were incredibly written and developed, and the plot was fascinating. Although the characters and story were so bizarre, the author had a way of writing that made you feel incredible emotion for the characters and the problems they faced. This is definitely a book that you either love or hate, and I loved it to pieces. I wouldnèt recommend it to anyone because it is very gross and disturbing at times but I think that many people will enjoy it. I think it's safe to say that this is my favourite book of 2016, maybe of all time. I can't remember a book that I've enjoyed this much in a very long time.

I really struggled with what to give this book. From the first, I was hooked.

“When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,” Papa would say, “she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her...”

I devoured it. The words were electric, dysfunctional, odd, and out of place, much like the characters. Crystal Lil and Al Binewski, in all their twisted striving, make a carnival out of their family. An albino humpback dwarf, Oly, and the narrator, conjoined twins, Iphy and Elly, a boy born with flippers for arms and legs, Arty, and a telekinetic called Chick. Together they are the story. The crazed, wild, tender, and heartbreaking story.

Despite its wackiness–or maybe because of it–I was hooked. You can't look away. My main problem with came about 3/4 of the way through where it felt like the light had gone out and the electricity had died. Perhaps this was meant to reflect the simultaneous decay of the Binewskis but, nevertheless, it made me want to quit several times. Still, the overall story itself is so dark and colorful and alive that, ultimately, that's what I won't soon forget.

“They thought to use and shame me but I win out by nature, because a true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born.”

It's the twisted tale of a family of freaks, the Binewskis. These people are sociopaths - their otherness isn't confined to physical deformities but to a skewed morality that exists outside the confines of us “norms”. It's a big, bold and at times horrifying look at family in a book that defies easy description.

This book has been on my “to-read” list for years. Why on earth did I wait so long to read (listen to) it? It's great. Evil and funny and heartbreaking and weird. Just what I needed.

It's appropriate that I'm writing this review on Valentine's Day. Dunn will rip your heart out, stomp on it, and then leave you to tend to your own wounds. But you can't even really resent her for it, because she's so damn funny. This book, about a family of traveling carnies, is deliciously, uncomfortably twisted. I'm not totally sold on the ending, but I think it might grow on me over time as the only possible way for things to have ended.

One of the better descriptions of childhood:

“It is, I suppose, the common grief of children at having to protect their parents from reality. It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood.

Can we blame the child for resenting the fantasy of largeness? Big, soft arms and deep voices in the dark, saying, “Tell Papa, tell Mama, and we'll make it right.” The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. How deep and sticky is the darkness of childhood, how rigid the blades of infant evil, which is unadulterated, unrestrained by the convenient cushions of age and its civilizing anesthesia.

Grownups can deal with scraped knees, dropped ice-cream cones, and lost dollies, but if they suspected the real reasons we cry they would fling us out of their arms in horrified revulsion. Yet we are small and as terrified as we are terrifying in our ferocious appetites. We need that warm adult stupidity. Even knowing the illusion, we cry and hide in their laps, speaking only of defiled lollipops or lost bears, and getting a lollipop or a toy bear's worth of comfort. We make do with it rather than face alone the cavernous reaches of our skulls for which there is no remedy, no safety, no comfort at all. We survive until, by sheer stamina, we escape into the dim innocence of our own adulthood and its forgetfulness.”

First, let me say that I'm not generally a fan of this style of writing. I don't much like Palahniuk and other similarly twisted-for-the-sake-of-twisted authors. That said, the subject matter of this book is fascinating. I've always been drawn to the concept of freak shows, dark circuses, and the like, so I did enjoy that part of the novel. However, the narrator falls into my most-disliked trope: she's a total pushover, completely weak-willed. I'm pretty sure this is supposed to have some sort of significance when interpreted correctly, but I was too annoyed by her to figure it out. A lot of the scenes seemed to be written purely for shock value instead of advancing the plot, as well. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a fan of this genre.

This book was so NOT about angsty teen love (which is why my high school self picked it up), but rather about a family of genetic freaks and their love for each other. I'm really glad that it turned out to be the latter instead of the former because otherwise it probably wouldn't be worth remembering. As it is this is a very, very good book, one that randomly pops into my thoughts even though I haven't read it in years.