This was a solid middle grade listen.

There were some themes revolving around coming of age, friendship, what it means to be normal, etc. that were fleshed out pretty well, and I can see younger readers bonding with the protagonist.

I did feel like the pace was a little slow, and I'm still not sure I follow the logic of the villain's actions, but the narrator's warm voice made it an easy listen.

Alert! A fun circus read for the middle grade set! But also, note, I am well into my adult years and thoroughly enjoyed this one too!

The Marvelwood Magicians are a family of traveling performers. 11 year old Maddie Marvelwood can read minds if she touches someone. Her mother can see the future and her father and siblings have their own special magical talents. They live gig to gig traveling from fair to fair. One day when their vehicle breaks down they meet Master Morogh, who is the ringmaster of a traveling circus. Morogh agrees to bring the Marvelwoods on as a sideshow act. Maddie and her family love the other circus performers but there is something strange about Morogh's hypnotism act: people seem to lose a bit of themselves after being hypnotized. Maddie's brother loses his ability to disappear and the young aerialist loses her grace.

This was a fun and quick read. We listened to the audio book yesterday while hanging around the house doing puzzles and drawing pictures. The audio book narrator did a great job and kept us engaged. There was enough adventure and intrigue to keep my young one and myself interested. There was great development of both the circus atmosphere and the characters.

I received a free audio copy of this book from Netgalley.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick listen. I enjoyed the characters and the plot.

I would enjoy more of a backstory on the characters. It would be amazing to see more of a character development.

Overall I loved this book. I can even picture it being made into a movie one day.

I loved the narrator. I would listen to books by this narrator again. And I would read more books by this author.

This is a middle grade book. This book is about a family with extraordinary talents and a circus. The story was so good, and I love circus setting books. I found the characters where very developed and fun. I feel I was there with the characters. Enough through this is a middle grade book I think adults would enjoyed this book as well. The narrator of this audiobook was great, and I really enjoyed listening to this book. I was kindly provided an e-audiobook of this book by the publisher (Live Oak Media) or author (Diane Zahler) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review about how I feel about this book, and I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

I am always curious when it comes to circus themed books. The covers are eye-catching and the blurbs are full of mystery!

When I saw this one as an audiobook on NetGalley I decided to request. It is a quick listen but it also has a lot to it.

Mattie Marvelwood and her family have always been different. They perform and even though others may be faking their skills, the Marvelwoods are the real deal! Because of this, they have a hard time trusting others. Mattie already feels like a freak and she doesn't need to add more fuel to the fire of her life.

Although Mattie is eleven, I thought she was a bit older because of the way she presented herself. Maybe that's just me since I haven't been around someone that age in a long while. Like any other kid, she wants to fit in and have a normal life. Her family's job does prevent normality. All of her concerns for who she is does make up a good part of the plot which I liked. She learns to overcome these things and realize that there is nothing wrong with being different. You can make friends being who you are.

As mentioned above, there is also talk about her family not trusting anyone due to an issue in the past with a friend. This is another topic that I liked. It takes courage to trust in someone again after getting hurt. It also shows true friendship.

The villain aspect of the book was nicely done. There is no redemption arc and we see that person for who they are. Their background does center around not fitting and correlates with Mattie in a good way. It shows that there are many paths in life and our choices can have consequences.

When it comes to the audiobook, the narrator does a good job with the accents for certain characters and it's pretty easy to distinguish between the characters. There is fun circus music at the beginning and end which is a cool touch.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and thought the circus theme was nicely done with good messages included in the plot.