CARNY GIRL

A traumatized teenager and a ferocious tiger must find ways out of their traps in Burbage’s novel.

American college student Kylie Jade Bellemore wants to help save endangered Siberian tigers, but her travels bring her more trouble than she ever imagined. While in Hungary, she tries to secretly film a circus featuring such tigers in its show. She intends to bring the footage back to her zoology professors in the United States, but before she can, she’s attacked by an unknown assailant and kidnapped. Later, Roland, the circus’s ringmaster, sexually assaults her and forces her to be a part of his tigers’ circus act. She befriends the fiercest tiger and names him Kiraly; another abductee, Shurik, is a survivor of the Chernobyl disaster who’s slowly dying from radiation exposure. Roland’s girlfriend, Leonora, and two lackeys, Yuri and Gameboy, are also part of his criminal enterprise. Later, Kylie meets Noah, a sweet young man who tries to help her escape. Back home, Todd, her father, who’s a famous editor of a music magazine, is doing everything in his power to find Kylie. The pressure this puts on Roland makes Kylie’s circumstances worse, and the tigers are also put further at risk. Burbage presents a brisk and often harrowing story of survival and terror, and the risks and stakes feel consistently believable. However, one wishes that Kylie were more fully developed as a character. The way that the narrative handles Roland is also confusing and off-putting; although he does horrible things to Kylie, they also share intimate, soft moments. Indeed, the narrative even provides the kidnapper with a sympathetic backstory, which detracts from Kylie’s. Shurik’s storyline also doesn’t resolve in a satisfying way, and Leonora comes across as a problematic caricature of a Romani person. The story attempts to show the complicated ways that poverty intersects with poaching, but the extreme violence obscures this point.

A fast-paced but flawed thriller.