The Bearded Lady

"The Bearded Lady" is a strange and wondrous tale that quickly pulled me in and didn't let me go until the last, mesmerizing scene. It is the story of Jessie and Tweets, two sisters who find themselves orphaned and join a traveling circus to earn money and escape from their cruel aunt's "care". Jessie fastly becomes someone the reader grows attached to as we read about her secret desires and adventures within the traveling circus world where anything can happen ... and does! This book is a must-read for anyone seeking literature that is new and exciting, strange and wondrous! Highly recommended!

I was reading this after a friend recommended it and, while I kept reading which says something I guess, I was thinking for a while that it wasn't really for me. But, I really started to care for Jessie and Tweets a lot more that I had expected, and some of the other characters too, like Marion, and really wanted to know what was going to happen to them and their difficult, freakish even, but toally believable life. I finished and now I want to know what happens to them after they've grown up. Give us more...

I read this interesting book in two night's. I usely read to fall asleep, could not with this one. Great book with suprising twists that had me fooled. I am looking forward for this new author to come out with her next novel.

Great characters, a great setting, and a plot which kept me reading through the night. I really identified with Jessie!

I picked up this novel to read a few pages before bedtime and read until the birds were chirping at 7 a.m. The story of Jessie and Tweets is a grabber. Both characters are well-defined, immediately likeable particularly the spunky Tweets as she grows from a frightened young girl to a tough and beautiful young woman. The author, Dieguez's, portrayal of the south in the early 1900's was quite accurate. The plot has enough twists and turn to make it compelling without confusing or manipulating the reader. Some of the twists were a tad predictable but still written in such a way that one didn't want to skip a word. Dieguez has a skill with the language. Her portrayal of delicate scenes, her descriptions of the circus "family," and the tragedies that befell the main characters or the circus left much to one's imagination. That alone is a skill in today's overly graphic sexual and violent scenes in the media. The author's knack for storytelling is a lost art. I look forward to seeing more of Ms. Dieguez's work. I'd love to know what happens to Tweets as she grows up. But then I have an imagination and I can do as Jessie and weave some stories in my own head. A wonderful coming-of-age novel.