I began reading The Charlatan's Boy by Jonathon Rogers with high hopes, but I soon discovered that this book was anything but great. This story is about a young boy, Grady, who travels from town to town in the Corenwald frontier with a huckster named Floyd pulling a variety of hoaxes and side shows to make money. Grady, an orphan, has never known any family so he has had to rely on Floyd and his schemes in order to create some sort of an identity. Grady tries to base his life around whatever flam that Floyd is pulling and it ultimately confuses him. He has no friends or family to rely on, he just has Floyd, who never really regarded Grady's feelings or needs. The story seemed like it would pull together, but it was very... elementary and simple. I never felt invested in any of the characters or their schemes. It was an all right read and it went by fast, but it's definitely not something I would ever re-read.
I've just started reading A Fist in the Hornet's Nest by Richard Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent and so far it is already 10x better than The Charlatan's Boy.
Happy reading!
I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.
