Follow Me Down by Julie Hearn

Title: Follow Me Down
Author: Julie Hearn
ISBN # 019275341X
Publisher: Oxford University Press
First Published: 2003
269 pages
Format: Paperback
Rating: 6/10

Synopsis:
Tom travels back in time to the 18th century where he meets a group of people who are displayed as monsters at Bartholomew Fair. Against a vividly-drawn background, Tom is able to help them tackle some of their difficulties, while at the same time acquiring the strength to tackle his own, modern-day problems.

Review:
I wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did, but from the start, it was a little confused in style and glazed over some aspects and going into detail on other areas, leaving me wishing that something more had been said about something else instead.

It's singularly lacking in description - the "freaks" are mostly left up to the imagination of the reader, but with precious little to begin formulating the picture to begin with. The characters are mostly very two-dimensional and I never really cared much about what happened to any of them.

The ending is left with threads dangling all over the place, leaving me wishing I had wither a big needle to sew it all up neatly, or a massive pair of scissors to shear them all off cleanly!

This story had great potential, but most of the possibilities were left unexplored and ultimately, I was left feeling unfulfilled.