This was an OK book for me. It was very long, and most parts just weren't that interesting. I had a hard time keeping some of the characters straight and what was going on at times. The topic of early 1900's interested me, I originally wanted to read Paradise Alley but heard this one came out first so read it...needless to say that I won't be picking up Paradise Alley based on this experience. Many times I just wanted to put it down, but kept hoping for it to get better. I will say the characters were interesting, that is what kept me going. However the book I feel tried to cover too much, too many stories going on, too many characters, that I feel like at the end we didn't even get that good of a look at any one! At the same token, it may sound odd, but I felt like the stories that WERE told here, they could have told in way less than 640 pages!! I guess I also had a hard time getting past the carnival theme of this book...Gip the Blood? Trick the Dwarf? I should have known before I even read Chapter one. OH, and lastly, why on earth Baker decided to make Freud and Jung characters, ugh, terrible!

Very long. Slightly creepy. Somewhat true. Insanely fascinating. This story takes place in NYC at the beginning of the 20th century, a la Gangs of New York, and it delves into the seedy underbelly of Manhattan. Complete with midgets copulating, massive fires, rape, sweatshops, and Coney Island madness, the stories are intertwining tales of eccentric characters.

It is rare for me to start reading a book and not finish it. Perhaps I'm ever the optimist, thinking something good's on the next page. This book just never caught my attention and after about 50 pages and several attempts to read more, I'm calling it quits.

This would be 3.5 stars for me. Extremely well-written, but I liked some of the characters' voices and stories more than others. I felt particularly drawn to Esther, the main character if there is one.

This book's edition opens with pages of praise from very respectable nationwide sources. Pretty tough to live up to, but Dreamland meets and surpasses every word of them. It's an absolutely awesome (in the purest meaning of the word) novel, an epic, a powerhouse. It is exactly what a work of historical fiction (any book, really) should be like, a perfect, perfectly immersive, magnificent reading experience. As a rule I stay away from large books, something to do with instant gratification or fear of being stuck with a dud, so it took me a while to approach this book, but once I started it, it didn't seem long at all, it read easily, which is a marvel in itself for such an epic work with enough characters to require a dramatis personae and shifting narratives. Kevin Baker creates a world so stunning, so vivid, so magical, that, like the actual visitors to Coney Island in the early 1900s, one is reluctant to leave it at all. Fortunately, with this edition, one doesn't have to, not right away, not when there is a glossary and a historical note from author (highly recommended since it's where Baker lists his subtle manipulations of factual events) and even a lovely and very informative author's tour of Coney Island as it stands currently (at the time of publication). So yes, as far as actual history goes, some facts were rearranged to fit the dramatical narrative better, but Baker captures so much of the flavors and colors and textures of small part of the world and thoughts, hopes and dreams of its inhabitants during a specific time period that this is not only an important book, it's an exceptionally good one. Very well written, smart and moving, with a phenomenal cast of characters including, but not limited to, gangsters, midgets, prostitutes, women's suffrage workers and psychiatrists. This is a story of tenement dwellers, immigrants, fighters, lovers and dreamers, a genuine chronicle of the American experience, the pursuit of an ideal at all costs and from all angles. New York has never held any appeal to me personally, but boy does it make for a great tale, amazing tale of bygone glory. For a while Coney Island shone so brightly against the night sky, that its Ferris Wheel would be the first thing the newcomers to the country would see, before the Statue of Liberty even. This is a story of Coney Island at its shiniest. Highly recommended.

This was a pretty good read, all about Coney Island, New York, the Jewish ghetto in NYC, and life in the work place for poor immigrant women shortly after the turn of the century. Sometimes, though, it didn't hold my attention as well as it could have, and the ending was definitely unsatisfying. It left you hanging while still bringing in the Shirtwaste Factory fire--which you'd been waiting for ever since the author established it as the workplace of the main female character.

If you write a collection of short stories but never provide an ending for any of them, have you created a novel? That's how "Dreamland" read for me - a series of stories with no endings. Every time I started to feel invested in a character, the story completely changed. Though I enjoyed the descriptions of Coney Island during its heyday, they were too few and far between to really keep me going. I slogged through the book rather than reading it with relish, and was happy to put it down several times to start on something else. I had incredibly high hopes for this book, but they were dashed. This book didn't prove to be my "dreamland" at all.

I read this 20 years ago or so- or at least I thought I did? But all I remember is the love story and the synopsis provided barely mentions it. So maybe I just skipped over the other stuff? But why would I do that? I never do that. And the other parts sound amazing. So I must have read them. But all that's stuck with me is Esther Abramowitz? How is that possible? Memories don't work like we'd think, and yet why would we think otherwise?
I'm tempted to read this again, but my copy's pages are yellower than the teeth of a cowardly smoker; so sadly, I cannot right now.
Excited to learn there's more to this series, but now the question looms: Do I reread the first one first or live life more dangerously?

oh my gosh, I flipped through this at half price books and had to flee the store before buying it( I could only sell books that day, no buying allowed) These are the kind of stories I love with massive characters full of crazy personalities and lifestyles that end up coming together. Just reading the back I felt like I was dropped into a David Lynch film or the movie "Freaks". And it takes place on Coney Island, how could you not read it I wonder?

Read this back when I was still 'bujang'. Remembered the story quite vividly but couldn't seem to enjoy it very much. The arrangement of chapters were a bit too confusing for me. Overall it was a challenging read. I wish I had some background of the history being told in this book, when I first got it.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I read it today though.

Incredibly vivid portrayal of turn-of-the-century New York City. Baker writes his characters with such liveliness and accurate detail that one feels as though they are reading over your shoulder.

I got about 245 pages into this promising but ultimately disappointing book. I give up. I don’t read only for plot, but it is nice to have one. Baker has created interesting characters, placed them in an interesting setting, during an interesting time, but somehow failed to create a narrative. It’s filled with colorful paragraphs, that seem to go nowhere.