A review by ewormuth
The Peculiarities by David Liss

5.0

I really enjoyed this book. I'm not usually a fantasy reader, but the premise intrigued me, and the fantasy is pretty rooted in reality, including characters like Aleister Crowley and Arthur Conan Doyle. It was humorous and horrific at the same time. I liked the conjunction of magic and mathematics, and I really liked Thomas, the main character. To me, he seemed complex and sympathetic. As others have said, it begins a little slowly, but I was engaged throughout, and it really gets going in the last third of the book.