What do readers think of The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler? Write your own review.

I have very mixed feelings about the Book of Speculation. On the one hand it's a multi generational story of love, magic, and ultimately redemption. The book is beautifully written and very atmospheric. It was a quick, entertaining read. The driving plot absorbs you and keeps you turning pages to find out what actually happens.

My problem was that I couldn't really connect with any of the characters. I didn't feel the characters had much depth. Plus I felt the storyline was a little too fantastical. By the time I reached the end of the book, I felt disappointed and didn't care whether Simon, the main character, succeeded in his quest.

The hook "If you liked Night Circus.." was all I needed to submit my request to read this Advanced Readers Copy! I wouldn't give it the 5 stars that Night Circus garnered, but this story earned a solid 3, possibly a 4. It was an easy read, I enjoyed the parallel stories of the carnival years ago and today's descendants. It wasn't quite as magical as Night Circus, but an entertaining read all the same.

I really wanted to like this book since it was compared to The Night Circus and Like Water for Elephants...but I think it fell short of both of these books. My main problem with this book was with Simon who, while the main character in the present day story, lacked much depth in the novel. I found myself wanting to read the historical story more than the present day one and I did like the way the author tied the events of the past with the present day.
I felt there were a few loose ends - Churchwary, H Peabody, Mde Ryzhkova....and the way that Alice and Simon got together. There were too many contrived situations that I didn't think moved the story along, but bogged it down.
While I do not usually care for mystical/fantastic/paranormal stories, I thought that these devices moved the story along. I think the editing should have been a little tighter to integrate the many elements of the story into a more cohesive/concise whole.

I was especially excited to review this book given the elements that it brings together: Tarot cards, book dealers, libraries/librarian and circuses. And there are all these interesting elements in the book and it's clear that the research on these topics was well done, but somehow they didn't come together for me to create a compelling story. Perhaps it's that there were actually too many interesting quirky elements in the story and that detracted from the development of a the narrative.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. The passage of time, a circus, and even a librarian! Erika Swyler has a real gift of prose that showed itself over and over again but her use of dialog felt forced to me. Reading it made me want to dig out the tarot cards I used to play with years ago. I appreciated the way she was able to take these parallel storylines and was able to sustain them until coming together in the end. All in all, an interesting book about family and memory and trust. A good first novel.

This is the story of a family forever damned to watery death by -- a book?, a curse?, genetics? What becomes certain to the protagonist, Simon Watson, librarian, is that his family history is disturbing and there may be immediate repercussions for its living descendants. So far, so good. There is a story here, and some strong place and time opportunities, but in the end, everybody could have been living in the same time and place. For me, there wasn't adequate explanation of the occult side of things, though the characters were attractive and I could see this as a movie. It seemed to me the Easy Reader version of a real sic-fi thriller.