I wanted to love this book, it had so much potential. It follows the life of Johnny Cruel, a boy born with a birth defect resembling wings. There was a lot to feel for Johnny, mostly heartache and sadness. The writing style made it difficult for me to really get into. There were also a lot of people to keep track of throughout the book. Several chapters were written from the point of view of one of these many characters, which gave valuable background and insight, but could be tricky when the reader has to dig deep to remember why the character is significant.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mark Mustian, and Koehler Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book had such an interesting premise and I loved the first third of it, but then the writing became too slow. It took me a long time to get through the rest of the book and I also felt most information was mere filler to make the book longer.

The book captured me from the first few pages and I was actually rooting for Johnny and his mom, but then about 40% into the book things started to just fall apart.

Things jump around like crazy and you are left to infer what happened in all the spaces. This is confusing and breaks the flow of the story.

Johnny was born with a deformity and declared an abomination by the town. The town wanted him dead, so his mother does what she thinks is best to protect him. Great right? But not really because she is sick and she knows she's sick but for some reason keeps insisting she will get better.

This book is set during the time of the Great Depression on thru to about WWI. The one thing that stood out is the Religious zealotry which is why the "town" wanted Johnny dead. The superstition that he was the cause of a young girls death just shows the ignorance of the preacher, but it fits with the time.

Triggers in this book include racial slurs, ableist slurs, suicidal ideation, alcoholism, grievous bodily harm and death.

I only mention the triggers because some will want to steer clear. Especially those who do not like realism in their books. The author utilized the language of the time period and that includes all the despicable terms people used back them to dehumanize others.

Quick and easy read, I would have rated it higher but all the jumping around and skipping over what I felt were important aspects just didn't sit right with me.

***Trigger Warning: Loss of a loved one***

I found the story intriguing, but the writing was not that great. I thought this book was a little long. I think it took quite a bit for anything to happen.

A touching tale of survival while being different.

Favorite quote “I am what God made me. What a boring life otherwise it might be.”

I had spectacularly high hopes for this novel, particularly with such a strong start. I was immediately drawn in by the ‘boy with wings’, Johnny, and his story; unable to stop reading until well past my bedtime.

Born different, in a time when being different was to be feared or jeered at, Johnny Cruel faces a hard life journey. Still a young boy, scared and alone, he suffers immense loss, torment and abuse. Having lost his mother and his home, he is forced to ‘star’ in a freak show where he daily exposes his body for the paying public, doing whatever it takes to survive.

Set in the South during the Depression era, with rampant poverty, racism, freak shows, carnivals, crime and violence, Johnny’s coming-of-age story was quite emotional and difficult to read, my heart breaking for the atrocities Johnny had to endure.

There were some small victories for Johnny – friendships made and lessons learnt – but the overall tone of the novel was one of sorrow and hardship, perfectly carrying out the writer’s intent. This was never going to be a ‘fluffy’ read and neither should it have been.

A four star read with a powerful beginning and a satisfying end. There were some pacing issues, with the middle seeming to lose some of the story’s earlier punch, possibly due to the introduction of multiple POVs. The accompanying chopping and changing tended to confuse the direction of the story and with that, this reader. Not a lot seemed to happen in the middle of the novel – some conversations with others, a reunion of sorts, a dark sense of foreboding – but all of the nitty-gritty of the story happened at the start and end, the last 50 pages hooking me right back in.

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

“Boy With Wings” is a very touching story of a young boy who literally grows a set of wings.

There are lots of different genres here in that the plot is set in America during the Depression. Jonny, the boy with wings, is left an orphan who life on the outside.
His mother tries to protect him, but unfortunately, she dies when he is very young and he finds himself taken in by a work camp. The difference being that they workers are black and he is white. Here he is different and finds himself looking at camp from the outside. Not just the fact that he has wings.

When his time ends in the camp he moves around – skimming over some of the narrative (we can only guess what happened), settling at a Circus. I love novels set in 1930s circuses and this one didn’t disappoint. Jonny being a side attraction and not from Circus stock is again on the outside.

This is an ongoing theme in that he never really fits in – he is always on the outside looking in.

The plot comes from multiple points of view – mostly not Jonny’s so often we have to guess what he is thinking.

I am not sure if the novel is for everyone but if you are a fan of Depression era historical fiction or of circus based historical fiction then this one might be for you.

"Boy with Wings” is a touching story that follows the life of Johnny Cruel, a boy with a unique physical characteristic that makes him special. The story explores themes such as a mother's unconditional love, resilience in the face of adversity, and the search for a place to belong. Although the plot weakens in its second half, the hopeful ending redeems it. This book offers an opportunity to empathize with those who are different and reflect on the importance of kindness, acceptance, and compassion.

Thank you to NetGalley and Koehler Books for providing this ARC.

Interesting read. Wasn’t entertaining or really thought provoking but an interesting subject matter. Well written.
Would probably be a good selection for a book club as people could have lots of differing opinions about the subject and characters.

An amazing read that is part Southern Gothic, part Carnivale and a dash of Depression-era Steinbeck. Mr Mustian paints a vivid tale of tragedy, love, heartbreak and redemption through the story of Johnny. The characters are well written and I could not put this book down!! Excellent is the only word to describe it!

I could not wait to finish this book. I hated it. At first I thought the writing style was mimicking the reflections of a child,but when it continue throughout the whole book, I really struggled. The plot jumps made little sense. There were a large number of run on sentences. The overuse of pronouns made it hard to understand who was talking about who. The ending was confusing...why murder a father you never knew? The epilogue was maybe the only redeeming factor for this book. I will not recommend it and I do not want it on my shelf.

Great story. As a teacher I would use this in my classroom because of the subtle yet slap you in the face themes that can be drawn. The characters you were supposed to like....you really did...and the ones you were not ....you did not!

This novel explored the experience of being different in America in the 1920s and 1930s. For Johnny , it was his wings that made him different and through a series of different timelines, we follow his story. There are also others who are different that he encounters along the way, including other side show characters, negroes, blind women and a man who has lost an arm through amputation. Without preaching, the various cruelties, prejudices and injustices are portrayed, with a very satisfying ending. This is a book that will stay with you as you ponder the many threads. Thanks to NetGalley for a chance to review this book.

I enjoyed this book because I could relate to being born different than "normal" and know what it is like to endure the stares and comments. I also know very well what it is like to search for meaning and where you belong. While the book take place in the 30s and in the South, this kind of treatment and outcasting still takes place today to those who are seen as different.
My thanks to Mark Mustain for having the gift to write this story and if only one person reads it and is a bit kinder to others than the book is a success.

Thank You to NetGalley for the advanced e-copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.

2.5 stars. This is a piece of literary fiction with great disability representation (mixed with magical realism) set in the Depression-era South. Our protagonist is a boy with wings who is always forced to leave his home and found family as soon as he finds it.

This would be a great read if you like literary fiction and want to discuss symbolism. It brought up lots of “book club” questions for me, like: what did it do to my perspective that the reader was made a circus “spectator” to Johnny’s life rather than having access to his interiority? What is up with the author’s choice to skim over major events/scenes/catalysts in Johnny’s life (e.g. violent transitions between one “home” to another)? Can Johnny fly—and is it meaningful that the author obscured this? Also, the age-old conversation of realism: the author is not Black and uses racial slurs pretty liberally (said by white racist characters). I’ll be interested to follow the conversation about language and identity in writing historical fiction.

There are some nice visual details in here, but ultimately it wasn’t for me. The whole book feels like a summary of giant swaths of Johnny’s life, and we barely know him by the end of it because there is no access to his thoughts, motivations or feelings. Every single time an interesting plot event happens it’s entirely skipped or obfuscated and then alluded to for the rest of the book. It seems like Johnny might be able to fly?? But I guess I’ll never know.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

DNF
I tried I really did to like this book picked it up multiple times, but it was really really slow to develop and honestly I didn't feel that the writing was very good. It was not atmospheric, although it should have been since most the book takes place in a circus. I just felt no connection to the story.

I really liked the historical and societal aspects of this book. It think the characters were interesting on multiple levels and I enjoyed reading this book a lot

I’m not sure how to feel about this book. The overall story concept was good, I could see what Mustian was trying to get at, but unfortunately he didn’t quite hit the mark. I loved the relationship between John and Winifred, as well as his friendship with Elias, and I loved the scenery descriptions.

All that being said, the writing style was really hard to follow, to the point where I almost DNF. There was a lot of guess work for what happened, and to me, the ending didn’t make sense. There’s so many open questions we never get an answer to. Who pulled John out of the fire? How did Winifred survive? They were so in love, wanting to run away together - are we really meant to believe that John never looked for her after the fire? I think having these answers would make for a fuller story and a more satisfying ending.

**Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC! This book will be released on March 15th, 2025**

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Recommend? Yes, with caution for triggers
Finished: 1.8.2025
Format: Advance Digital: thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC 

A boy with a secret, a mother with a duty to protect his secret, and the many people who enter his life to discover & try to exploit boy and secret, both. This book takes the classic coming-of-age trope & wraps it in wings made of adult self-interest, religious zealotry, maternal stand-ins and normalcy wrested from the grips of an exceptionally turbulent life.

Read this if you like:
Disability rep
Found family
Flashes of HEA
Coming-of-age

Triggers: racial slurs, ableist slurs, religious zealotry, suicidal ideation, suicide (minor character off-page), alcoholism (secondary character on-page), grievous bodily harm & death on-page

Reviewer’s Personal Notes (all opinions are my own, and are intended for readers and not for the author)

Favorite quote: “You want to be everyone else, and yet they’re all of them strange and different, unique to each other whether you know it or not. There is no normal life. It takes time to accept this, and even then, it can go in spurts.”

High: Reading first-person POVs from all but our main character was a really interesting piece of storycraft. The technique created a spectator-view mimicking his life in the side show, while shielding his innermost thoughts from the prying eyes of the reader. There is a fair amount of surrealism in the last 1/3 of the book that makes one question if there is an unreliable narrator at work, or if the surreal has supplanted the expected.

Low: Utilizing language common to the 1930’s feels jarring and despicable to any human with feelings, though it would have been inescapable during that period. I feel that I am not the right reviewer to fully enter into a conversation about the need for such language, but what I can say is that it needs to be listed among the triggers for this book; it is used to underscore the brutishness, self-importance and inhumanity of those spewing such hate; and it is not glamorized or encouraged by the author.

All his life, Johnny has been different. He was born with wing-like appendages on his back. He’s been the object of stares, whispers, and rumors. At times it was so bad that his mom hid him away out of fear for his life. After many years of living in secrecy and fear, she decides to leave their small town and seek a fresh start elsewhere. Sadly, tragedy befalls them and he ends up alone. At first he’s taken in by a small community but is soon discovered and forced to leave. Eventually he ends up as part of a traveling sideshow where he’s not the only one who’s always been considered a freak. It becomes his home, his family, but it’s not without problems. I especially enjoyed the historical fiction aspect of this book. Johnny's story was very compelling and heartbreaking. It was a bit drawn out for me at the end.