Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: Plagued by a rare disease and the vengeful curse of a former school headmaster, Timmy Wicketts finds himself a directionless vagabond on the streets of the 19th century English town of Upper Southrump. Out of desperation he turns to street performing, and that choice leads him on a journey grander than any he could have imagined. His is a true tale of love, friendship, and perseverance.
My Review:
Timothy Wickets hails from the strange sounding
Southrump in Victorian England, where he has been expelled from a prestigious school
just a few months shy of graduation. Unfortunately his former head master had
put the word out around town about him and no one will hire the young man.
This forces him to look for a work at the bottom of
a pig trough, literally. The only man who will hire him, Samuel Mudd, is an entrepreneur
with a revolutionary idea. He wants to start his own pig drawn cart to
transport customers around the city. Wickets readily agrees and before long he
has made quite an impression as well as some money.
However as things start to go downhill, Timmy
quickly finds himself living on the street until one day he runs into a fellow
school chum who offers to buy him some food in exchange for an encore
performance of some of his skills as an impressionists. Wickets agrees which
leads him into a whole new life as an actor, eventually founding a troop of his
own called The Royal Perfects.
The book tells the story of his adventures in this endeavor
as well as his other jobs but mainly focuses on the story of The Royal Perfects
in general which was something of a disappointment to me. We started with Timmy
as our main character and I really thought it was going to stay that way but
once the other characters got introduced the author did some head hopping, more
than I would have liked.
The other thing I didn’t care for much was the style
of writing in some passages. For example at one point when The Royal Perfects
hold an audition for more actors, we get at least a paragraph summarizing the
back story of the seven guys who are auditioning for three spots. I thought
that perhaps this was to build up sympathy for these guys who all have had a
rough go in the world but later when three of them walk out to join Timmy’s
nemesis John Smith, I felt let down. I was hoping that they might redeem
themselves later on in the story but they don’t. So tell me again why I needed
to know their back story?
On the plus side, I liked the characters. They had
charm, spark and personality. They could also be very funny.
I also liked the story itself, most of it anyway. It
was not dull most of the time and I loved the humor in the characters in spite
of their circumstances. Give it a try.
Contains:
some
sexuality
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