Henrietta Hornbuckle's Circus of Life Book

Henrietta Hornbuckle is a clown in Filbert's Traveling Clown Circus, and has been her whole life. Used to the travelling life, loving to watch the world pass her by as she tumbles and exaggerates movements and brings cheer and laughter to each town the circus visits. To Henrietta, circus life is a fluid, dynamic constant in her life. Then suddenly everything changes - Henrietta learns that the circus is in danger of closing, financial problems having finally become insurmountable. Furthermore, her mother, Hortense, wants to reconnect with her estranged sister Carlotta - a woman with an enormous house (the first Henrietta had ever entered) and a butler - a lavish, expansive lifestyle absurdly foreign to the young clown. Then the unthinkable happens, and Henrietta's jolly life is thrust away from everything she loves.

I really like the concept of this story, but didn't think it was executed well at all. The writing style worked with the lifestyle of the book, at times, but not consistently - and Henrietta was a lofty, unrealistic narrator. The issues in the book (the dissent between Hortense and Carlotta, for example) are flat and under developed - other than Henrietta's refusal to accept anything other than circus life, the book is rather emotionless, even at its most difficult times.