The two women - Blanche, a French burlesque dancer; and Jenny, a cross-dressing frog hunter - are hiding out at a boarding house on the outskirts of smallpox-infested San Francisco, trying to escape Blanche's violent ex-lover.
Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. See my What a terrible book. In the background San Francisco is undergoing a heat wave for the record books, and a smallpox epidemic which created an atmosphere of panic and finger-pointing at the Chinese population. Sure, there's a murder but it's not what this book is about. I just finished it, and I loved it. 031632468X The reader has a lot of range to her voice and really conveys emotion though While the story itself has its issues, the audio book is very well read. In the sweltering fall of 1876, a San Francisco prostitute tracks a killer and searches for her stolen baby. While this book is fiction, it is based on the lives of people involved with each other during the time a real incident – Jenny’s murder - occurred.I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway. The triggers here are graphic sex involving different groupings, and also child abuse – specifically in “baby farms” where the parents of little ones sent their babies at a cost due to various personal circumstances. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead. Based on the unsolved murder, in San Francisco during the latter part of the 1800's; the murder being that of Jenny Bonnet, a cross dressing, frog catcher with a mysterious past. It is a wonderfully researched historical novel, with many details that bring that time and place alive for the reader, including life in Chinatown. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The millions of readers who know Donoghue only from the harrowing tale of that little boy will discover in “Frog Music” just how expansive and boisterous this Irish Canadian author can be.Emma Donoghue has broken out of her “Room.” Four years after that bestselling story of a mother and child imprisoned in a garden shed, she’s back with a novel ravenous for space, for people, for sounds — for all the life that 5-year-old Jack never had. She loses her own child several times as well. Emma Donoghue’s Frog Music is as raucous and ebullient as its title implies.
Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead. The main character is a dancer/prostitute/circus performer. Fabulous audiobook performance! Emma Donoghue is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.I found that this story had not much to do with the premise of the outline.
In his masterful how-to guide, It is a small quibble with an otherwise impressively realised and gripping book. It’s surprisingly dark and gritty which I wasn’t expecting from the cover (because I went into this one blind without evThis book has cemented Donoghue as an auto buy author for me. Sleaze and sordidness behind the glitz and glamour of showbiz provides a decadent backdrop for this sexy historical whodunnit. A fascinating character study, murder mystery, and atmospheric historical fiction set in 1870s San Francisco. by Emma Straub BOOK REVIEW. I believe that life is too short to finish a book that you do not enjoy.I believe that life is too short to finish a book that you do not enjoy.I didn’t read The Room and I’m not planning on reading it. What a terrible book. ... BOOK REVIEW. The only Room I care about is that iconic movie.This book has cemented Donoghue as an auto buy author for me. The crux of the plot is the unsolved murder of her cross-dressing frog-catching friend Jenny. [ She ships him off to be raised in an institution so she can continue her life stripping and whoring. On top of all the sex and the murder, there was the worst book I have read all year.
Okay Becky cool but I don’t care. I found the whole story just absolutely fascinating, the life of a burlesque dancer is not something I’ve read about before or something that I thought I’d find interesting but I was completely captivated by her life and the crime that happens.Somewhere between Blanche having sex with various men (and maybe women) and Blanche whining about wanting to have sex with various men (and maybe women), there was a murder.
She has no street smarts or common sense. I felt no connection to either the characters or the setting. No matter what happened in the storyline, it became about how it affected Blanche. She and Blanche become friends after Jenny runs into her with her while riding her high wheeler. She loses all of her belongings, money and clothing several times in a few weeks.
I would probably not have read it if it was not for having read Room a few years ago.
I appreciated how the main character Blanche is made to be neither necessarily 'likeable' nor 'good'; she's an ambivalent but loving mother, a sex worker, a woman who likes to have lots of sex, and sarcastic. I was stunned that the NYTimes gave it a terrible review. I would probably not have read it if it was not for having read Room a few years ago. I’m saying that because everyone is like ‘Omfg this is nothing like the room’, ‘the room was so much better’. After ROOM, a book I loved, I was so excited for Ms. Donoghue's next book FROG MUSIC but.... now that I've read it, I simply do not understand how/why this book got positive reviews; in my opinion, it was just awful! I was not expecting to read French (sex slang mostly), or songs about drinking and child abuse (in French and English). I felt no connection to either the characters or the setting.
Frog Music book.
The crux of the plot is the unsolved murder of her cross-dressing frog-catching friend Jenny. We’d love your help.
On the whole, Frog Music is a fun, sexy romp through life in San Francisco in the 1870s. However, this book is nothing like Room.In the summer of 1876, Blanche Beunon and Jenny Bonnet are on the run.
Based on the unsolved murder, in San Francisco during the latter part of the 1800's; the murder being that of Jenny Bonnet, a cross dressing, frog catcher with a mysterious past. Okay Becky cool but I don’t care. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesSan Francisco circa 1890: in Donoghue's latest novel, a city simmering with racial tension, smallpox and a record heatwave.