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whatjasread's review
5.0
I DEVOURED THIS. oh my goodness, it was everything I love wrapped into one. I did not want this to end, I need more after that ending!!!
prationality's review
4.0
I think, of all the things I've read, this has been my favorite (to be fair this is the only fictional based on story I've read). This book has a little of everything--which is both a blessing and a curse. I wasn't quite sure why we needed the Cassandra/Will subplot, except maybe as a foil to Caraboo's adventures.
Johnson imagines Caraboo (Or Mary) as a young girl who's life was broken by heartbreak and betrayal, who takes up the Caraboo life not to con or bamboozle or steal, but because for her Caraboo is what she aspires to be.
Fierce, strong, unflinching and fearless. Caraboo swims and hunts and has a knife she dances with. She is everything a girl like Mary would want to be.
Johnson imagines Caraboo (Or Mary) as a young girl who's life was broken by heartbreak and betrayal, who takes up the Caraboo life not to con or bamboozle or steal, but because for her Caraboo is what she aspires to be.
Fierce, strong, unflinching and fearless. Caraboo swims and hunts and has a knife she dances with. She is everything a girl like Mary would want to be.
alyce6d980's review
3.0
'If she acted like a princess, then that is what they would all see.'
Mary Willcox is found unconscious on the Bristol road, just outside of Almondsbury, in May of 1819. Following the betrayal of the man she loves, the death of her son she was travelling from London to Exeter by foot. After a brutal attack by two men on the roadside, Mary decides she will no longer be herself: she will become the Princess Caraboo, a strong, independent, fearless member of a distant royal family. Speaking in gibberish, she feigns a lack of understanding, disappearing into herself and becoming Caraboo.
Cassandra Worrall, the daughter of the residents of Knole Park, 'the biggest and most important house in the district', is in the local inn when Caraboo is discovered - she insists upon taking her home, as her mother studies anthropology and she is certain she will be curious about the mysterious woman that has been found.
Cassandra's father and her brother Fred both disbelieve Caraboo instantly, certain she must be tricking them to get money, so her mother sends for famous seaman Captain Palmer and the phrenologist and electrical expert Professor Heyford. Heyford is unconvinced, but Palmer is also skilled in the art of deception: he pretends to talk to Caraboo in her own language, crafting an elaborate backstory to explain how she came to be in England.
After getting Caraboo's identity corroborated, Fred begins to have feelings for her: she's one of the only women who has ever seen him for who he is. But with Palmer threatening to expose Caraboo for the fraud she is, she knows she needs to get away from Knole Park as soon as she possibly can.
I had a lot of problems with this book.
I feel as though I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't recently read 'The Lie Tree' by Frances Hardinge, which is set fifty years later but it feels older; it has a genuine historical air around it. Something in the narrative of this book felt modern, so I was struck with a constant sense of disconnect.
Read the rest of my review here!
Mary Willcox is found unconscious on the Bristol road, just outside of Almondsbury, in May of 1819. Following the betrayal of the man she loves, the death of her son she was travelling from London to Exeter by foot. After a brutal attack by two men on the roadside, Mary decides she will no longer be herself: she will become the Princess Caraboo, a strong, independent, fearless member of a distant royal family. Speaking in gibberish, she feigns a lack of understanding, disappearing into herself and becoming Caraboo.
Cassandra Worrall, the daughter of the residents of Knole Park, 'the biggest and most important house in the district', is in the local inn when Caraboo is discovered - she insists upon taking her home, as her mother studies anthropology and she is certain she will be curious about the mysterious woman that has been found.
Cassandra's father and her brother Fred both disbelieve Caraboo instantly, certain she must be tricking them to get money, so her mother sends for famous seaman Captain Palmer and the phrenologist and electrical expert Professor Heyford. Heyford is unconvinced, but Palmer is also skilled in the art of deception: he pretends to talk to Caraboo in her own language, crafting an elaborate backstory to explain how she came to be in England.
After getting Caraboo's identity corroborated, Fred begins to have feelings for her: she's one of the only women who has ever seen him for who he is. But with Palmer threatening to expose Caraboo for the fraud she is, she knows she needs to get away from Knole Park as soon as she possibly can.
I had a lot of problems with this book.
I feel as though I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't recently read 'The Lie Tree' by Frances Hardinge, which is set fifty years later but it feels older; it has a genuine historical air around it. Something in the narrative of this book felt modern, so I was struck with a constant sense of disconnect.
Read the rest of my review here!
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