This book is such a great and eerie read. Hoffman’s work of historical fiction paints a despairing portrait of two lives which become intertwined through a series of odd events. Coralie is a disfigured girl who is forced to perform as a mermaid in her father’s Museum of Extraordinary Things on Coney Island. She longs for a normal life and yet is able to find friendship among all of the other abnormal employees, especially the housekeeper Maureen. Ezekiel is a young son of an immigrant Russian Jew who watches his father be forced to work in unsafe working conditions while making hardly any money. Disgusted with their situation, he breaks from his father, begins working for a man who finds missing and lowly persons, and ultimately takes on the name Eddie as he becomes a photographer’s apprentice. His work eventually includes capturing the horrible moments after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and leads him on a chase for a missing girl which allows him to cross paths with Coralie. The book is a great work of love, hope for the future and the seeking out of justice for the less fortunate, and is hard to put down once started. Hoffman’s writing is elegant and detailed, allowing her readers to become intimate with her characters. This book is great for anyone who is interested in New York City, its history and its immigrants around the early 1900s. There are also many creepy characters with questionable backgrounds for readers interested in darker stories.