A friend recommended this book to me, so I took it with me on vacation thinking it would be an easy one to finish up before the end of the year. It was a perfect choice; it's entertaining and a page-turner, and I finished it in just a few days. 
 I wouldn't say this is a great work of literature, but it's cleverly written and has an intriguing enough story, and it's definitely fun to be taken behind the scenes of a circus--something that to me has always seemed mysterious and glamorous and morbid all at the same time. This book is all of those things, but it manages to also be a feel-good novel rather than a depressing one. 
 I'm curious to see how they managed to turn this into a movie without sacrificing the twist that convinced me to bump my rating up to four stars...