Coram Boy

Set around the mid-eighteenth century, this book takes inspiration from the real-life Foundling Hospital set up by Thomas Coram for abandoned and unwanted children to tell an intricate tale of family and friendship. Filled with a variety of engaging characters, this story will keep you intrigued throughout. For the most part, I greatly enjoyed reading it, and especially liked the way that historical facts were weaved in without being intrusive. The only part I did not like as much was the ending, which seemed slightly abrupt. One thing I would suggest to anyone thinking of reading the novel is to avoid looking at the blurb first - I found that, at least for the edition that I read, it gave away some plot points up until almost the end of the novel when combined with a bit of inference, slightly lessening how compelling I found the novel.

Coram Boy is an amazing book overall, however it's weird and uninteresting in the first half which is a shame because I might not have continued reading it at some points. The second half is pretty good and makes up for it. The ironic comedy is fantastic and brings the whole story up. The ending felt off to me though and I didn't like how happy it was, it felt like they were going for a happy ending then veered off course for a tragic ending then veered back on course for the worse of the two endings. Meshak was one of the only aspects better in the first half going from someone you had sympathy towards to horrible and frustrating. The other characters were generally fun to read and I really liked the villain. This book was good and I thoroughly enjoyed it but I would only recommend it to a friend if I thought the first part wouldn't deter them from the rest of the story. It's utterly fantastic though if you have patience for the first half.