At it's core, Showtime is a book about a girl named Laila, who runs away to join the circus. There's a bit of mystery and some romance mix in, but for the most part the novel centers around this well known circus troupe.
I wouldn't consider myself a circus aficionado or a circus lover. In fact if you asked me, I would reflexively say that I don't like circus books, despite the fact that I have liked every one I've ever read, starting with The Wish Giver in grade school. Partly because of this and partly because I have problems avoiding my friends' obsessions, I've been on somewhat of a circus kick lately and when I read the summary for this book I knew I had to read it. Good compelling summaries feel a bit like a lost art these days, finding one the piqued my interest was reason enough to pick up the book.
Given how compelling the summary was, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I wouldn't go as far as to say I was disappointed, but I was expecting something a bit more engrossing. That being said, the performances definitely had me hooked. I found myself caught up in the narrative, anxiously waiting to see which parts of the show would be highlighted each time. Along with this, I absolutely love the circus life that Kayne created. There's a great attention to detail (and vocabulary) that really brings the circus, the costumes, and the performances to life. There are some places, however, where the descriptive nature of the narrative becomes a bit excessive. While it happens less frequently in the midsection of the book, this was one of the things that prevented me from being able to fully immerse myself in the story, particularly in the beginning of the novel when Laila is first introduced. Instead of setting the scene for the entire novel, copious amounts of attention is paid to the scuffle Laila finds herself in. Not only does this slow the pace of the fight, it also leads to a sense of ambiguity within sections of the narrative. There were quite a few times I had to stop and remind myself that the book was set at the turn of the century and not in an amorphic steampunk alternate universe or in some version of the near past. Being a history lover, this was quite unsettling.
The excessive description also lead to a sense of emotional detachment particularly between Laila and her boyfriend. The reader is continually shown the actions that steam from Laila's emotions instead of being able to delve into the emotions themselves. While this helps avoid many of the pitfalls of the typical modern YA young love paradox, this degrades any sense of chemistry between these two main characters.
Along with this, the mystery, while woven wonderfully into the main story line was ultimately disappointing and unsettling in the end. It felt almost as if the last section of the book was tacked on to act as a segue for the second book. While I'm not generally against this, I wouldn't mind if the book was left with more cheer, and more questions, in the end. Having the book with such brutality, particularly given the unprecedented nature of the violence, was quite frustrating.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. It's not bad for a first book, particularly one that's been self-published. And, while I'm not as enamored as I was at the start, I am looking forward to the second book in the series, which should be out some time next year.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes young adult romances, particularly those that are similar to what's found in Divergent. Circus lovers would also enjoy Showtime, although people who prefer more succinct prose, or who prefer adult fiction to YA, may be better off with The Night Circus.
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