Looking for something a bit darker to read for the fall season? How about some grave robbing and human anomalies? The Impossible Girl by Lydia Kang just might be that book you are searching for then. A historical fiction tale with a bit of mystery this one is certainly fitting for the time of year.

In 1830 Charlotte and her maid Leah were helping a young mother with the birth of her baby as the family wanted nothing to do with her or the out of wedlock child she carried. After the baby was born however the mother suffered some complications so a doctor was called but it was too late to save her. While there the doctor examined the baby and found she was born with two hearts and suggested she become a specimen for testing in which Charlotte of course was immediately offended.

By 1850 that baby had grown into a young woman named Cora who had come to know she had to remain hidden. Charlotte was now gone but she had done her best raising Cora by pretending until her teen years she had been a boy to hide from the rumors of the girl with two hearts. Now Cora has gone into the business of procuring corpses with anomalies to sell for medical studies to keep an inside eye on the business and whether or not anyone still believed the rumors of her own birth.

The Impossible Girl had a bit of everything wrapped into it really. You get transported back to the mid 1800’s during a time when the medical field was full on learning how to treat patients and a time of the side show spectacles. There’s danger and murders which brings in action to the story, a splash of romance and the touch of just plain creepiness thinking of trolling the graves. Wrap all of it together with one tough as nails main character making her way in a man’s world as she dodges threats from all angles and this one definitely would be one I’d recommend checking out.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

The Impossible Girl by Lydia is a Historical Medical Mystery. The main character Cora has medical knowledge and skills but supports herself as a female resurrectionist in 1850 New York City. This book is full of action and wonderful characters each with their own secrets. I enjoyed the many medical facts, anomalies, practices and history. I was interested to read about the first US. female physician since my great grandmother was also one of the early female physicians. I look forward to reading more books by this author and hope they include Cora. I have purchased A Beautiful Poison also by Lydia Kang and believe it will be just as exciting as The Impossible Girl. My thanks to the author, the publisher and netgalley for making this book available to me to read and review.

This was a super thrilling book that was chock full of suspense, danger and a bit of romance. Cora/Jacob are thrust into so many perilous situations that this is an edge of your seat, can’t stop reading kind of story. I suspected that one of Cora’s friends or family members would betray her but I did not make the correct guess. I truthfully was blindsided by it and feel like a twit for missing any clues. I don’t even recall there being any clues, that’s how surprised I was! Events leading up to the end were so full of tension and I was honestly unsure if it was going to end well or very, very badly. I found I was attached to some of the characters to an unexpected extent and I got a touch teared up over what transpired.

This brought up some really interesting issues over the medical use of human bodies and tissue and who owns a body after death. Is it a moral requirement for someone with a physical condition that could be used to teach or even help cure others to do so? Does everyone have an inalienable right to their own body and tissue? I’m an archaeologist and I admit that we find anomalies in human anatomy fascinating. Our physical anthropology lab in university had many human bones that had been marred by disease or injury. (Syphilis is the best, look it up!) Some of these specimens were from people who had donated their bodies to science but most were from India. I questioned why this was the case and was told a story not entirely dissimilar from that of the resurrectionists. So despite all the advances in procurement and regulating laws it appears this practice isn’t as far removed as we might like to think.

Looking at the author’s bio I see that she is a physician and this is pretty evident in this book. The medical knowledge is meticulous and accurate. I feel like the historical details were also researched thoroughly, right down to the patois of Five Points at that time called “flash.” All of this was incredibly immersive and I felt like I was there with Cora walking down the street or digging a grave with Jacob. This is historical fiction done exactly right and the added element of forensics just makes it all the more appealing.

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

I loved The Impossible Girl. The setting is expertly laid out, detailed and realistic, and the characters are relatable and likable. It was everything you want when you pick up a young adult read; a level-headed and intelligent young woman as the female lead, and a strong but subtle romance to swoon over.

Calling Cora Lee an enterprising young woman is to say the least. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy socialite and an anonymous immigrant - neither of whom she ever meets - Cora Lee has made a life for herself as one of the premier resurrectionists in Manhattan, keeping tabs on the list of the island’s most interesting people with the most abnormal maladies. The irony is, Cora Lee has been keeping her own malady a secret; she’s the rumoured girl with two hearts.

Her mother, who cast out by her family when her pregnancy was revealed, dies in childbirth and Cora is left to the care of her aunt, her aunt’s lover and their maid. The doctor who comes to examine the infant instantly latches onto a second pulsation in her stomach, callously telling Cora’s aunt that the baby won’t live long and he’ll be back to buy her corpse to study the rare malady. In an attempt to save Cora Lee’s life by discrediting the claims of the doctor, her aunt decides that they’ll raise her as a boy until the rumors have subsided and they can move out of Brooklyn.

As a young woman, Cora lives in Manhattan and is able to mingle with high-society, using her innate ability to schmooze with the best of them to gain the best intel and make all the connections a resurrectionist could need. But by night, Cora continues part of her life as Jacob Lee, the alter ego that was her disguse as for her entire childhood, and runs the gang of resurrectionists that exhumes and delivers the bodies to their recipients. Despite living what is essentially a double-life, Cora manages to keep everything running smoothly; she makes ends meet for her and her maid, she's running the most successful resurrectionist business in Manhattan, and she's able to keep tabs on those who might be after her two hearts. That is, of course, until she meets a handsome and charming young man while casing a new job, a new museum curator becomes aggressively interested in crafting a unique collection, and a series of murders begins to hit close to home.

The idea of a young woman with a mysterious malady and her job keeping track of those like her until they die may seem a little far-fetched, but Lydia Kang is not only a great writer, she’s also a practicing physician. The novel feels very realistically grounded in both time and place; Kang does an excellent job placing her characters and describing the differences in class that weigh so heavily on Cora Lee’s moves. The world in which medical students need and benefit from the work of resurrectionists like Cora, as well as the medical knowledge Cora and her colleagues have, seem very authentic.

The romance here is subtle, and the entire plot isn’t riding on it. There are no lusty scenes to knock your socks off, but hell, if there isn’t something spectacular about a love interest who sees through all the secrets, breaks down all of the carefully crafted walls, and apologizes when he knows he’s been a jerk. But I really liked how this story was about Cora, and Theo (her young man) is only a supporting character. She’s a character you want to follow the whole time without scanning pages to see how long before her love interest returns because you need the feels.

My only qualm with the book is how easily Cora seems to have been able to fool nearly everyone in her adult life into believing she is a pair of twins, a male and a female. Kang is sure to walk the reader through Cora’s elaborate transformation into Jacob at least once in the novel, detailing how expertly Cora hides away her more feminine features and makes herself appear more traditionally masculine, but it does seem like someone who might feel less than kind towards Cora and her success could have discovered her secret earlier.

I’d recommend The Impossible Girl highly.  I know that in there is some steep competition out there when it comes to YA romances, but Lydia Kang’s writing is great and Cora Lee is not a character to soon be forgotten.

Buy it at: Amazon

WOW! This book had me more hooked than any other I've read in a long while!
It is a brilliant, original novel that looks into grave robbing and body snatchers in the mid 1800s. It follows the story of Cora, the only female resurrectionist in New York, as she and her team dig up recently buried bodies and sell them to the highest bidder. Cora has built a network of doctors who tell her of unusual cases among their patients, for Cora specialises in those that are afflicted with anatomical anomalies, and institutions will pay a higher price for those bodies. She has compiled a watch list of people that suffer from these afflictions and watches them from afar, waiting for them to pop off from their mortal coil, attending their funerals, and later that night returning to the gravesite to dig them up. However, people from her own watch list have started disappearing or dying of unnatural causes before their time.Then one day Cora receives a wish list from one of the buyers, it's a list of desirable traits in a body, and the prices to be paid for them. Cora's isn't the only team to receive this list, and it includes, among other things, a girl with two hearts. There has been a bit of a legend around body snatchers that such a girl exists, but nobody knows for sure. Nobody except Cora, for Cora's closely guarded secret is that she is that girl, the girl with two hearts!
I found myself racing through this book, having to find out what happens to Cora, as those that mean her harm get closer to discovering her secret, and how she would thwart them. Lydia Kang has crafted an unputdownable novel, full of intrigue and suspense. It's well researched, I am now enlightened on many matters of grave robbing and human anatomy, and gives a good inkling of the lifestyle of our characters at the time the novel is set in. I highly recommend this book to all lovers of mystery, intrigue and suspense.
My thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I usually go into books with a fairly good idea of whether or not I’m going to like them. Sometimes I’m proven wrong, but generally I’m in the ballpark. With The Impossible Girl, I had no idea what to expect. I had not read anything by Lydia Kang, and I wasn’t quite sure if this book was adult or young adult or had supernatural elements or was just straight historical fiction. But I knew I needed to read a book about a half-Chinese female ressurrectionist. And I’m so glad I did!

I was blown away immediately. Lydia Kang’s writing style is my favorite kind: beautiful, but not at all distracting or pretentious. It fit well with the story, and was a pleasure to read. Just really good writing. I also loved that Kang is a doctor; her medical knowledge was evident, and I think it added a lot to the story. She also did a great job with the twists. I am pretty good at predicting twists, but I don’t think I saw any of these coming. There were a few I had a bad feeling about, but I didn’t quite know what was going to happen. That is a huge feat in my book, and it made me so happy.

The story itself was completely engrossing. I was invested very early on, and it just got better from there. I thought Cora’s story was really creative, but fairly realistic for the time period. It feels like something completely outrageous, but when you take a step back you see that it’s not. The mid-nineteenth century was a weird time, when P. T. Barnum was making mermaids out of monkeys and everyone was running over to California in search of gold. So it’s not completely unfathomable to have an underground society not only digging up bodies (a widespread common for decades – just ask Leonardo da Vinci), but actively searching for bodies of those with deformities to study or display.

As for the characters, I think it’s safe to say I loved them. I enjoyed the fact that the main character is half-Chinese, and there is a really great African-American character as well. Not an incredible amount of diversity, but I think it’s pretty good for a historical fiction novel. All of the characters have a lot of depth and each added to the mystery, which was so fun. I’m not going to spoil you and say who, but there were a few characters who started off good and turned out to be completely awful, and I did really like that sort of reverse character growth. It was so interesting and exciting. And (again, not saying who is involved) I loved the love story so much. It’s definitely not the main plot of this book, which is perfect, but it’s one of the things that stuck in my head the most. Overall, this was just a great book. Fun to read, impactful, and interesting.

So! I'm not a historical fiction buff but this book sold me on looking into the genre more. We follow a strong feminist female lead Cora who is born with 2 hearts! Yup TWO! Well developed characters and plot made me feel like I was there with my own secret identity working along with Cora.

Honestly there were moments that I felt dragged a little but not overwhelmingly so that I had to put it down because you're back on the roller coaster ride until the very end! The Impossible Girl read more like a Historical Mystery than Women's Fiction story but had aspects of that genre.

Thank you Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for this E-ARC!

An unusual plot, a terrific character in Cora, and excellent writing makes this historical mystery a must read for fans of the genre. Cora is a woman with two hearts, a medical anomaly that also makes her the target of a murderer- and a potential subject of her own grave digging. Whew! There was a major league fascination with those who had physical differences in 1850 (and isn't there still today?). That Cora takes advantage of the bodies of those who like her are unique is not incongruent. I found her work as a resurrectionist fascinating as well. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This was a very good read.

"Two hearts. Twice as vulnerable.


Manhattan, 1850. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy socialite and a nameless immigrant, Cora Lee can mingle with the rich just as easily as she can slip unnoticed into the slums and graveyards of the city. As the only female resurrectionist in New York, she’s carved out a niche procuring bodies afflicted with the strangest of anomalies. Anatomists will pay exorbitant sums for such specimens - dissecting and displaying them for the eager public.

Cora’s specialty is not only profitable, it’s a means to keep a finger on the pulse of those searching for her. She’s the girl born with two hearts—a legend among grave robbers and anatomists - sought after as an endangered prize.

Now, as a series of murders unfolds closer and closer to Cora, she can no longer trust those she holds dear, including the young medical student she’s fallen for. Because someone has no intention of waiting for Cora to die a natural death."

This book had me sold at resurrectionist add in the Whovian vibe of two hearts, and it's a must read.

he Impossible Girl takes an interesting, almost fantastical premise – does Cora Lee, the protagonist, really have two hearts? – and then firmly grounds it in rich historical detail. Especially vivid are the depictions of resurrectionists (people who obtained corpses to serve as public medical dissection cadavers or even as freakshow museum anomalies) and their work in mid-nineteenth-century Manhattan. It’s a novel that asks a lot of questions about medical research, respect for the dead, “race science,” past and present misogyny, and being biracial in an America that thinks of nonwhite people as inferior.

Cora is a resurrectionist. Possibly one of the best. Born with what feels and sounds like two hearts, Cora is raised in isolation and disguised as a boy (I’ll get into that in a bit) to protect her from anatomists, or doctors that would love to dissect her. She’s given an education throughout her childhood and harbors a deep-seated dream of becoming a doctor. Several things work against this dream – her gender, her race (her father is an unknown Chinese man), and her lack of money. Disguised as Jacob Lee, she works as the leader of a grave-robbing crew to earn much-needed cash.

It’s through Cora’s work that she meets Flint, who she views as potential competition. Their meeting, and the strange murders of people with medical anomalies like her own, set off a rivalry between them and a tense investigation into what’s going wrong among Manhattan’s resurrectionists. As Cora races against money problems, physical danger, and the inquiring attention of Flint, she must decide who she can trust and what path to take.

-Setting-

The 1850s Manhattan setting is meticulously realized. I could tell the author went to great lengths to research this book’s subject and location. (That said, I’ve never even been to New York City, let alone to Manhattan, and I’m not a time-traveler or historian.) The gritty alleys and gaudy parlors were vividly described but not overdone. Even though I had some issues with the novel (which I’ll get into a bit later), I applaud the author’s work on The Impossible Girl’s setting.

-Characters-

Cora made for an engaging protagonist. Practical, a little proud, and endlessly inquisitive, she is diverted from her childhood interest in becoming a doctor by her protective guardians and the societal view that women were not fit to work in medicine. To readers who would rather their historical fiction protagonists never express viewpoints that would have been progressive in their time, I imagine she will seem like an anachronistic heroine. The novel counters that view a bit by including a fictional version of an actual female doctor who lived and worked at the time, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.

I’m not usually a fan of characters disguising themselves in the clothes of other genders in novels, at least when it’s done poorly. As a nonbinary person, I often wish that characters used the opportunity of attire to explore how they feel about their identity or gender. In this novel, it was…okay. Not bad. I kind of didn’t love how, when her “true” self is revealed to people who formerly only knew her as Jacob Lee, they just say that they knew based on her size and appearance. Still, it didn’t rankle me too much, and I suppose this story’s main focus was more on the mystery/whodunnit aspects rather than an introspective exploration of gender.

Flint was an entertaining character, though I never got a strong feel for him. He felt almost like a rough sketch to me, rather than a fully-finished drawing. That might be due to the strength and presence of Cora’s character in comparison to his, however.

As for other characters, I gotta say, I was actually pretty surprised at one of the late-stage plot twists with a particular character. It was just how I like my twists: with just enough hinting to get a strange feeling about things, but not enough hinting to equate to a neon sign over their head shouting LOOK AT ME, I’M BAD NEWS. Then, there are several other twists I won’t name, but that we almost depressing to read. Just…wow. Cora faced a lot of shit in this novel.

One of my favorite relationships in this novel – and one that I liked far more than the romance – was Cora’s developing relationship with her cousin, Suzette. It was so sweet and good to see Cora develop a relationship with another woman, with them supporting each others’ aspirations and having each others’ backs, despite their very different backgrounds.

As I mentioned in the section about characters, this novel’s plot was definitely twisty. (Admittedly, I don’t read a ton of novels in the mystery genre so your mileage may vary with my assessment.) It was definitely dark, though – dark in the sense that Cora really did face some terrible betrayals and intense feelings of emotional isolation. Near the end, there’s also some terrible threats of physical danger, but nothing that reached a level I would describe as gratuitous or voyeuristic. I felt that Kang used dramatic tension and danger to good effect in this novel, even if some sections of the novel felt terribly grim to me.

Be warned, though: this novel does feature a great deal of death and corpses. After all, Cora works as a resurrectionist. If you don’t enjoy reading descriptions of dead bodies, murder, or general violence, you might want to steer clear of this.

-Things I didn't enjoy as much-

I actually really liked this novel, despite what I see as its flaws, so this section is going to be fairly small.

--The latter half of the novel felt a bit disjointed, and certain sections of the plot did feel a slow-moving. It didn’t prevent me from reading it, but I did take longer to read this book than I usually would for one of its length.

--I didn’t love a certain element in the romance. I won’t mention it here, because it’s a major spoiler, but I’ll probably include it contained in spoiler tags for my goodreads review.

--The ghost chapters. I think the novel would have been stronger without them, and I didn’t really like them.

And that’s it! Like I said, this novel ultimately won me over and made for a good mystery read on the whole.

-Recommended or not?-

Yeah, I rec it! I would say to take note of the fact that this is not a young adult novel, but it looks like it isn’t being mistakenly marketed as one. But ultimately: give this one a shot if you enjoy period mysteries, medical drama, spooky and moody settings, or a strong heroine. All of those elements plus more are present in this novel, and I think it will make a nice, atmospheric fall mystery for many readers.

A fascinating piece of historical fiction with its roots in fact, this is the story of the Impossible Girl, Cora Lee. Born out of wedlock to the daughter of a wealthy New York family, fathered by a nameless Chinese sailor, and with two hearts beating in her chest, she disguises herself as her "brother" Jacob, to carry out the dangerous work of a resurrectionist, stealing corpses from cemeteries throughout the city for sale to anatomists, medical schools and even showmen seeking curiosities for display. Fully aware that her own anatomy makes her a prime candidate for such a fate she has spent her entire life concealing it, but despite her best efforts rumors of the girl with two hearts persist and there is soon a bounty on her head. When a series of murders seems to suggest that curiosities are being killed to order, Cora Lee must figure out who is behind it before they find her, and the list of people she can trust with her secret seems to be getting smaller every day.
It is clear that a lot of research went into this book , on both the historical and medical fronts, and this is reflected in the richness of the details within the book, easily one of my favourite things about it. The incorporation of real life historical figures is very well handled, and while the detail is fascinating it never overwhelms the story telling or slows the pace of this dramatic historical thriller. Cora Lee herself is a wonderful character, well developed and brought to life on the page , as a reader it is easy to empathise with her. The book moves along at a good pace, with enough twists and turns to hold the reader's attention to the end , and a satisfying conclusion that fits the story.
I was originally drawn to the book by its gorgeous cover, and then sold by the description, and I can say I was not disappointed, it was a gripping and entertaining book from start to finish.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I liked this book just as much. She has a unique clean writing style that draws you in and just won't let you put the book down. I read this one in 5 hours. Highly recommend.

Fascinating and utterly unique historical fiction.

This is a book that you fall into. It sounds a bit bizarre (girl masquerades as a boy to steal corpses with unusual conditions), but the world building and Cora’s perspective are so we’ll drawn that the unusual is normal.

It’s also a mystery as people keep dying and Cora is very likely going to be the next victim. It’s almost impossible to figure out whom to trust and what everyone’s motives are.

This is fascinating and macabre without being needlessly psychologically dark. There’s hope and strength and optimism in this world of dead bodies and oddities.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of the book for review.

'So, thirteen-year old Cora had shivered and cried, wondering if her numbed left arm and leg would work again, or her garbled speech would right itself. And they did- only a few hours later. It never happened again, but the incident reminded Cora that her body held dark sway over her existence.'

Cora, birthed three weeks too early in shame to Elizabeth, an unmarried socialite is born with an anomaly, two hearts. When her mother dies giving birth to her, a doctor discovers her extra heartbeat, assured having a chinese father follows all the other pecularities brought to the docks by those ‘foreigners’. Being of mixed blood certainly causes these oddities! Immediately the doctor is hungry to have her for dissection, when she dies of course, because he has no doubt her death will come soon. With the baby, this anatomic jewel, she would be a great gift to medicine, something to dissect and study! He will pay them, it’s obvious they live in poverty and sorely need the funds.

Charlotte herself knows all too well what life is like as a family outcast, cut out of the family for her own ‘sins’. With her cousin Elizabeth passing and the threat of the doctor looming over their heads, she devises a plan to hide the child. One baby girl takes on two lives, as Jacob and Cora Lee, twins. So begins the adventures of Cora, Queen of Resurrectionists, employed by anatomists! Instead of gowns and all that glitters she chases down the dead from funerals to cemeteries to make a pretty penny. Even the poor that often “died in such dreadfully ordinary ways” can line her pockets, but competition can be fierce! It’s the unique bodies with oddities that are in high demand, people like Cora herself. She watches her marks, waiting until death takes them, keeping always to propriety as a lady should, even when dealing with the stink of death.

Before long, such people are dying unnatural causes, disappearing! Cora knows someone is hunting them and the killer may well be on her heels. Worse, she has met a mysterious medical student, Theodore Flint, poaching her business who knows all too well about Cora Lee’s fierce reputation. Disguised as Jacob, Cora and Flint come to an arrangement and everything gets muddled as her feelings for him become more than just business. Running from passion and love is nothing compared to the killer coming to collect a most sought after oddity for his collection, Cora herself.

Containing two hearts makes it that much more fitting that Cora has led a life as two people in order to survive but Flint could unravel the only protection she has, if he discovers her brother doesn’t even exist. The timeline beginning in 1850 with Cora’s birth, was ripe with body snatching for medical studies you can research this and find out the shocking reality. Too, this is a feminist story in the split necessary for Cora to take on the role of Jacob to navigate the rougher side of life. Cora is fiercely intelligent, full of medical knowledge and yet Jacob is the one the invite to the Grand Anatomical Museum is extended to by Theo Flint. In a world where women were less, Cora has risen to legendary status. Her own aunt and mother’s removal from the well to do family because of their pregnancies out-of-wedlock was the norm of such times and yet we see amazing strength and courage in Charlotte taking on the care of her niece. These were mean times if you didn’t have money, which is why as vile as body snatching is, it’s a sink or swim existance and people did what they needed to in order to survive! Bigotry against mixed- blood children, xenophobia, the poor versus the rich, sexism, it’s all here and it’s quite an adventure.

I was engaged to the very end and genuinely feel Cora makes for a fascinating young woman! This is one to add to your TBR pile, I was still guessing how it would all come together and the ending is just right.

Publication Date: September 18, 2018

Lake Union Publishing

I did not want this to be over.
At the same time, I needed it to be over because it was almost 1:30 am and I knew there was no way I was going to sleep without knowing how Cora Lee's story ended.

Cora Lee is born in the time of PT Barnum, when any abnormality from gout, to a tail can land you on display in one of New York's medical theaters.
The doctor who examined Cora on the day of her birth detected two heart beats and started telling stories around the town of the impossible girl born with two hearts. Afraid for her safety her aunt decided to raise Cora as a boy, Jacob.

Cora/Jacob are now successful resurrectionists (Grave robbers), tracking and stealing the bodies of those who have died with an abnormality a buyer would be interested in, all the while keeping an ear to the ground for any rumblings of the girl with two hearts.

I loved these characters, as well as the story line and Lydia Kang's writing style.
From the first page to the last I loved this book.
Originally it was the cover that drew me to this book, the description sounded interesting enough, but the beautiful cover made me want to love this book.

I can not wait for this book to hit the shelves, because I will definitely be picking up a copy.

The wealthy Cutter family of Manhattan will not stand for the shame and embarrassment of heirs born out of wedlock.  
When Elizabeth Cutter finds herself unmarried and pregnant, she's sent away to live with her cousin Charlotte who had also found herself in the same predicament but lost her baby during childbirth.

Elizabeth dies in childbirth but her daughter survives.  When a doctor arrives, he is astonished to find two heartbeats and tells Charlotte and her maid Leah that the girl will not live.

The baby girl named Cora not only survives but thrives under the care of Charlotte, her former partner Alexander, and Leah and becomes the only female resurrectionist in New York.  She scouts fresh burials by day as a lady and then returns at night disguised as a man named Jacob with a small crew of 3-4 men to dig up the body and deliver them to anatomists for payment.  
Cora's specialty is anomalies like vestigal tails or tumors that grow hair/teeth.  She keeps an eye out for patients with obscure or peculiar conditions because these will garner her the highest price if she can deliver them to the medical college for study.

Her job not only pays the bills but also allows her to listen for rumors about the girl born with two hearts that has become legendary in her profession.
When several people with physical anomalies die in a short time span, Cora suspects they're being murdered for profit.  The legend of the girl with two hearts has raised the stakes and now she cannot trust anyone, including her family (those who raised her and those who covered up her existence) or the man she's fallen in love with.

Cora must risk her own life to discover who is behind the murders and prevent them from finding out she is the ultimate prize, the girl with two hearts.

This was an exciting historical fiction novel centered around the true story of grave robbery as a profession.  Medical colleges did indeed secretly pay for bodies so that they could learn more about human anatomy/disease and help future patients.
Cora's story was fast paced and entertaining as everyone became potential suspects with a motive to want her dead.  There was scandal, mystery, suspense, and even a romance (which thankfully didn't overtake the story!)

Thanks to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 Stars

The Impossible Girl caught my eye because the description sounded so unique. I had been scrolling through Netgalley for quite a while, and everything looked so generic. Just as I was about to give up, I stumbled across The Impossible Girl, and it was definitely a lucky find!

The story is set in 1850 in New York City. Twenty-year-old Cora Lee has never had an easy life. Her mother was a wealthy socialite who was disowned from her family for getting pregnant out of wedlock then died giving birth to Cora. Cora is then raised by her aunt who was also abandoned by the family for refusing to conform to their expectations. Orphaned, illegitimate, and biracial, Cora’s life was never destined to be comfortable. But there is another darker secret that hangs over Cora: she was born with two hearts. It was a time when anyone with birth anomalies was outcast or worse – hunted both by medical enthusiasts who wanted to study them and by the gawking public who paid to see any “freaks” both dead and alive. When the doctor who delivered Cora begins telling tales about the girl with two hearts, her aunt does everything she can to protect her. They move away and turn Cora into Jacob, raising her as a boy until puberty in an attempt to throw off the people searching for her.

Twenty years later, Cora is still caught in-between two lives. By day she is Cora and moves on the fringes of genteel society. By night she is Jacob and works as a resurrectionist (someone who steals bodies since back then it was illegal to use corpses for any medical studies, so they had to be procured through grave robbing). Jacob specializes in unusual bodies – anyone with a physical anomaly. This is precarious given her own highly sought-after anomaly, but it allows her to keep track of who might be after her as well as earning a living. But the stakes get even higher when someone starts murdering people with physical anomalies and a bounty is put out for the legendary girl with two hearts. Cora is left fighting for her life and unsure of whom to trust.

The story is fast-paced. I couldn’t put it down and easy read it in a day. I loved the detailed historical setting which was well-researched without being too dry or bogging down the story. Women’s repression is a major theme in the book. There is even a cameo of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first women in America to earn a medical degree. It was also interesting that Cora struggled with her gender identity. After experiencing the freedom and respect offered to her when she is disguised as Jacob, it becomes more and more difficult to behave as Cora. As a woman she has few rights, many restrictions from society, and no way to earn a living. On top of that, she has stigma for being biracial and illegitimate. The Impossible Girl is a story with many layers that I found very engaging although it borders on far-fetched at times.

As a side note: there may be some confusion about what genre to classify this book as. Very minor Spoiler: There are some interludes between the chapters that are told from the perspective of the murder victims. These sections provide background information and slowly hint at who the killer is. They may technically be told from the perspective of “ghosts,” but they don’t have any direct bearing on the rest of the story. They provide information for the reader. I might possibly call this magical realism but that’s stretching things a bit. This is absolutely NOT a fantasy story though! I think people could be misled by the description and go into this with very different expectations. I’d hate for someone to dismiss this book just because of differing expectations. But to reiterate, this is not a fantasy story. There is no magic. The “resurrectionists” really were just grave robbers, not necromancers or anything like that. It’s not like any of the characters see the “ghosts” or are affected by them in any way. It’s Historical Fiction all the way.

The plot hinges on not knowing who to trust which requires that the other characters’ motivations are kept secret from the reader. While that was fine on a plot level, it also meant that I never got to know the other characters very well. Character development was sacrificed in order to maintain the plot twists. This is my only real critique about the story. While the story was certainly engaging and kept me guessing, I also got a bit fatigued with the “who can I trust” betrayals. You can only play that card so many times before it gets repetitive. I wanted to get to know some of the other characters better but wasn’t able to because being in the dark about their motivations was vital to the plot.

Aside from that, I thoroughly enjoyed The Impossible Girl. It probably won’t make my top five for 2018, but it is safe to say that it will stand out as one of the most original books I’ve read this year. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who likes Historical Mysteries/Thrillers and/or stories with strong female leads. I look forward to reading more by Lydia Kang.

Five fantastic stars. This was amazing. I loved the atmosphere!! Gave me such Edgar Allen Poe vibes. I loved Cora and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Lived up to the beautiful cover.

Cast of Characters

I found Cora an interesting voice from the start - despite the gruesomeness of her chosen vocation she pushes forward the idea of women having a career in a profession that may have been, until then, mostly male, and resisting to just get married and have children as is the norm. The resurrectionists I have always found a fascinating topic, as with the earlier days of medicine, so am always excited to read about it. She seems to have fallen into it because of her aunt, though if she knew she was going to take over the business it might have been easier to just be Jacob all the time! She is intelligent and determined, though sometimes can be a bit arrogant, and dismissive of others, especially Leah, her maid.

As the story wore on there were some instances where the characterization seemed to slip a bit, with Cora making odd decisions or some trains of thought that seemed improbable based on what she’d stated or implied earlier in the story (for instance - quite determinedly not wanting to get married/children, then all of a sudden worried about the unborn child – I get that your sentiment would change, but it seemed to change in the span of a few hours after finding out she was pregnant). This started to irritate me a bit, when some of her decisions and thoughts just felt off, and made me lose my attention slightly near the end.

World Building and Writing Style

There was a lovely and atmospheric setting, described enough to be able to picture it if you’re unfamiliar with the era but not too much of an information dump. You can tell that the author has put a lot of time and effort in researching and bringing the world to life, as well as having a background in medicine herself. The writing style is very easy, I blew through it without too much effort which allows you to be immersed in the story. I always find this more tricky when both setting and style are old fashioned!

Pacing and Plot

The story has very regular pacing, though at some moments I was a bit confused as to how much time actually was passing as some of the moments were minutely drawn out, and then suddenly days or weeks would go by in a paragraph. The plot was engaging and – given historical context – realistic. I didn’t see the reveal coming, I thought the danger was in a different corner. The only turn that felt a bit off was Leah’s plot, as she suddenly seemed a very good actress despite Cora mentioning that she was an uneasy liar! Also there seemed to be some slight convenience near the end in the plot with lo and behold, all the murder weapons right there in the room to find, without much effort!

Evaluation and Enjoyment

This book was an easy and enjoyable read. It was only in the last ¼ of the story that my interest slipped based on the - what felt to me - uncharacteristic behaviour as mentioned earlier, and some convenience of the plot near the end. All in all I think I most enjoyed the setting and atmosphere, which really evoked the feeling of 19th century New York, with the plot holding it all together, and the characters as a bonus. Would recommend if you want to slip back to a time where your body wasn't all that guaranteed to rest in peace!

Despite the fact that this is a slow moving read, my heart was racing (is that a pun)? for every close encounter Cora had— this didn’t need action packed scene to excite me. I loved Cora as our main character. Becoming her fictional twin brother, Jacob, to do the dirty work was really interesting as she comments on the pros and cons of being a man and woman in this 1800’s society. There was some immigration commentary with many nods on how Cora is biracial. She’s half Chinese/half white I believe? And it’s noted often how people see her as exotic and rare; she utilizes it for her work. However, her work was a bit muddled for me, yet as the book went along, something just clicked and the story flowed better. I was genuinely pleased when the revelations were popping up left and right. I guessed… one? Plot twist? But that was it. I didn’t guess anything after that, there was so many threads, some seen, some unseen and my mind was blown. However, the ending did start getting muddled, things were happening left and right and I was starting to get lost. However, this story kept me on my toes.