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What our customer's say!

"Great read!", This is wonderful read, both from the perspective of the insights into the way of life at the time in question, and from the perspective of the development of the personalities and motivations of the charachters. I am a fan of non-fictional histories, so this was a bit off the track for me, but it was a wonderful diversion. Having recently read The Great Mortality by John Kelly, I found the intimate details of life in these times even more fascinating.

"Book missing pages", Emailed book vendor BUT NEVER RECEIVED A RESPONSE. Pages 1-34 were missing from Years of Wonder and vendor didn't even offer refund, replacement OR copies of missing pages. I'll order elsewhere in the future.

"I'm Loving This Author", After reading March, I had to immediately read this novel by the same author. It's the story about the plague hitting a small village in England and how the people in the small town change as a result of it. I've been fascinated with historical fictions about plagues since reading Connie Willis' Doomsday Book. I still think I enjoyed Doomsday Book a bit more, but they are, after all, two entirely different stories.

I found it interesting how this particular plague tale focuses on a real plague in a real town. The Puritans of the town don't know whether to blame God, Satan, or witches for the plague. It's interesting how they looked to their pastor (who wasn't a Puritan) as a leader to tell them what steps to take next: quarantine their town, burn all their possessions, etc. The main character, Anna, was dreamed up by the author when she read that the town's minister's servant was spared in the plague. Curiosity about the servant led to the author creating a historical fantasy in her mind about the town, its inhabitants, and the ministers servant.

This was a great first fiction novel for Brooks. However, it doesn't have nearly the power that March has. The only semi-unfulfilling parts for me were the unfinished relationships and an ending that felt rushed. Of course there are going to be unfinished relationships in a time of plague, but there are too many that are senselessly cut short. And when the main character is suddenly thrust into a new life toward the end, we merely get a detail-starved synopsis that leaves us wishing there was more. I suppose that an author has the prerogative to end their story however they want, but I wish they wouldn't take the story to such a different turn and then just stop.

"Unexpectedly, A Great Read", A story about the plague that is set in England in the 1600's isn't one that I would have likely read had it not been chosen by my book club. However, I'm glad that I read it, and highly recommend it to others. Even if you're someone who doesn't generally read books set in a different time period, don't shy away from this one. It may take a few pages to adjust to the language, but the story is compelling and moves quickly. Dire circumstances bring out the best in some people and the worst in others, and this author does an outstanding job of demonstrating this through the experience of the residents of a small village that is nearly decimated by the plague. Based on a true story and told through the eyes of Anna, reading about this small village is an emotional experience that offers opportunities to examine ones own reactions to the decisions and actions of the village members.

"Beautifully Written, But Strange Ending", This is a beautifully written book with elegant prose. The author handles the gory details of plague accurately (I assume, I've never seen plague) and tastefully. You are struck by the horror and devastation, but not totally repulsed by the gore of so much death.

I have wondered how people who survive something like this (seeing almost all of their family and friends die) do so without serious pyschological damage. They don't. Even those who seem strong cannot, in the end, withstand the trauma of it all. Their grief leads to some very strange and out-of-character actions. I highly recommend that you put enough time aside to read the last 100 pages without interrruption because you will be rivitted. The ending is odd, and will shock you, but how do you end a book about events that were totally out of the ordinary for these people?

Read this reviews before You buy...

"One of the best.......", This is one of the best books I've read in the past year. It is dark, sometimes overwhelming so, but wonderfully written with a protagonist that you want to journey along with. The ending was so quickly and perfectly wrapped up and such a contrast to the atmosphere of the rest of the book that it was nearly fairy-tale-ish. Oddly, this actually added to the satisfaction of reaching the last page, it was a sweet reward for all the suffering that went before.

I love this book, Geraldine Brooks is obviously an extremely talented writer and now I can't wait to read The People of the Book.

"Kinda weird and gross, didn't like it very much.", The premise sounded interesting enough. In 1666, a small English village quarentines itself to keep the bubonic plague from spreading. I couldn't wait to start it. However, the unsetting discription of a plague boil popping (only like 20 pages into the book) kind of grossed me out. Anna, the protagonist, is a young widow. She becomes enamored not only with the minister but his young wife. I thought her relationships with them would be interesting, but they actually weren't, and I was bored by the descriptions of things that didn't seem to matter. I wanted to finish the book, so I dragged through, but i was very disapointed.

"Five Stars But For the Ending", I won't give a synopsis of the book as that has already been done. I loved this book. The writing was lyrical and I even cried in a few spots. The problem was the ending. My reaction was "What?". How did we go from this beautiful book to this? I would still recommend the book and am glad I read it.

"Even worse than World Without End, if that is possible", I can't believe I just read ANOTHER truly horrible plague book. This is just not my year. Ken Follett's World Without End was ... looking back, I would have rated it only one star.

At least this little piece of fiction was short. Ugh, the characters!

Year of Wonders.

Plague hits one little lead-mining town in northern England, because the itinerant tailor imported some infected wool. The town decides to isolate itself in order to prevent the spread of the plague.

Our narrator, Anna, is the daughter of a poor lead-miner. An alcoholic one, at that.

But her narration reads just about like Jane Eyre throughout the book, which sounds jarringly "off". This is supposed to be a peasant here. The narrative style was not peasant-y.

Take page nine. "I open the door to my cottage these evenings on a silence so thick it falls upon me like a blanket. Of all the lonely moments of my day, this one is always the loneliest." Oh, I think it's pretty prose, don't get me wrong, but peasants don't talk this way, let alone really behave with as much introspection. Peasants don't EVER use the word "zephyr" -- you can take my word for it. Check out this turn of phrase: "Our village is a thread of dwellings, unspooling east and west of the church." It's a little highbrow.

The narrative style was so distracting, that I couldn't enjoy the book. Way too literary -- she should have chosen a different narrator.

This rural community was ... too new-agey to be believable.

Oh, sure, they kill the midwives in a stereotypical witch-hunt.

But these are lead miners. Rather than all this peace, love, and understanding, these folks *should* have been dull-witted and violent to a very high degree.

The whole bit about (I'm paraphrasing here) is the plague sent from God? Is it the work of the devil? Or is it just the natural order? Is this a test of our faith or just a circumstance of life? What is faith, and what is superstition? Why do we spend so much time pondering these imponderable questions? Maybe our time would be better spent figuring out the causes and contagion patterns of the plague. (end paraphrase) These are fairly 20th-century thoughts for a (probably lead-poisoned) servant in 1666 to come up with, eh? But you can read them for yourself right there on page 215.

And then Mr. Mompellion -- really, he seems modeled on the uptight cousin from Jane Eyre -- handsome, stern, forbidding, unforgiving of himself and those closest to him. A gifted orator, perhaps, but rather a sorry Christian. Oh, and his sermons are called "hectoring" -- because, you know, that's how Christians are.

I just think Geraldine Brooks borrowed too much for her characterizations, without really making up new people of her own.

By the time we get to the end of the book, we have totally abandoned the idea that Anna's narration is coming from a 17th-century servant, and now she seems to speak with a proper university-educated post-modern American sensibility. Suddenly, and very clearly, Anna knows that she does not want to walk each day in yet another place where Elinor had walked. For I am not Elinor, after all, but Anna. Check out how she makes a deal with a Muslim doctor to live in a sexless union in his house. Very likely!

Bah. I'm going back to non-fiction. This was a bummer year for fiction for me. And it's only April!


"Excellent, emotional well written novel... until the end.", I completely fell in love with this novel. I cried, I actually shed tears at the end of one of the chapters. The thing that stood out the most for me in "Year of Wonders" was the vocabulary. She really did her research to really make reading this novel feel like you were actually talking or at least watching this grim part of history happen.

But then all of a sudden the book just fell apart. The last chapter had so much happen in it, it was just laughable. Like the author was on some kind of deadline and had to get it done in an hour. She could have left the whole last chapter out. I didn't understand it at all.

All in all, it still needs a good review, because it really was a good novel. I will recommend it at my work.