Pages: 413
Rating: PG - there is one scene where she almost gets raped, but it's not graphic or anything
Summary: She was only two feet, eight inches tall, but more than a century later, her legend reaches out to us. As a child, Mercy Lavinia “Vinnie” Warren Bump was encouraged to live a life hidden away from the public. Instead, she reached out to the immortal impresario P. T. Barnum, married the tiny superstar General Tom Thumb in the wedding of the century, and became the world’s most unexpected celebrity. Vinnie’s wedding captivated the nation, preempted coverage of the Civil War, and even ushered her into the White House. But her fame also endangered the person she prized most: her similarly sized sister, Minnie, a gentle soul unable to escape the glare of Vinnie’s spotlight.
My Thoughts: This book is my favorite type of historical fiction. ALL the characters and events are real, it's just the details that are filled in by the author's imagination. All of Vinnie's inner thoughts and feelings, her specific conversations, and her impressions of those she meets are mostly fictional, but who she meets and where she goes and what she does are all real events. I had never even heard of General Tom Thumb until I read this book, and it was definitely fascinating. If you are interested in reading up a little on Vinnie and her life, go here. There are also several pictures you can find by searching "Lavinia Warren Stratton" on the internet.
I love the way the author chose to portray Vinnie as someone with huge ambition and drive, but also not willing to allow her small size to hold her back from achieving anything. Vinnie is a very proper lady and she never lets anyone forget it, even when she is being displayed early on in her career on a crude traveling showboat. She wants to be remembered for how cordial and perfectly ladylike she is, not by how small she is. It was absolutely fascinating following her life story, especially as she became a very close friend of the famous P.T. Barnum, which is still a household name even in the 21st century. There was so much history in the book as well. She starts out her career as the Civil War is breaking out, and her marriage to Tom Thumb actually manages to push news of the war into the back pages of the newspapers. Each chapter begins with a few short newspaper excerpts relating the news of the time period, such as the new discovery of electricity and how it can be used to power lights. I loved it.
The only complaint I would have about this book is that when Vinnie goes to Utah and meets the Mormons, she has an extremely disfavorable view of them, because of polygamy. The book says that she felt like the Mormon women were more like background slaves and that they were downcast and depressing in appearance. This was obviously something that was mostly up to the author's personal discretion. In the Author's Note at the end, she says that she never found much of anything that Vinnie shared personal feelings about. I was a bit disappointed that the author made something like that up. Yes, they were practicing polygamy at the time, but I highly doubt that Mormon women were actually background characters, there to just serve their husbands meekly and not to be seen or heard. That doesn't mesh with what I know of Mormon history. So that was really the only part that I was unhappy with in the book. Otherwise, it was an absolutely fascinating read that I highly recommend!
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