Wow! Good job, mom for giving me this book. This book takes place during the seventeenth century when a The Plague hit a small village in England. The story is told through Anna, a single mother who has a small sheep farm and works as a maid. A man who is renting a room in her house suddenly dies of a sickness no one really understands. Proper measures are not taken and soon the infection spreads quickly throughout the village. The clergy man urges everyone to stay in the village so as not to spread the disease to other towns. They make an oath but keeping this oath proves tragic for most. Whole families die or might just leave one small orphan left. Anna, along with the Rector and his wife do what they can for the people of the village. Anna is forced to take on many roles that she never dreamed she could ever do such as midwifery, create medicines from herbs and even a little mining. She is very self-sacrificing in her actions as in most of her thoughts but like everyone she grows tired and looks to ease her own pain but is roused back to service by her great friend the rector's wife. Social statuses dissolve and as people die some wounds are healed and some are opened.
This book was very well told. The whole story was so enthralling. My only disappointment was throughout the whole story there is no detailed reference to sex. Don't get me wrong, I'm not easily put off by a sex scene but I was remember thinking half way through the book that this book could have so much sex in it if the author chose but it didn't. It didn't need it and I thought that marked a good book that didn't have to rely on sex. Well, then comes my disappointment when toward the end there it is. It was very tastefully done, I will say. I don't think anyone would blush too much. I just didn't quite believe it of the characters. But I guess they had just gone through the Plague so it could have changed them, well it did change them I guess. I just felt the sex scene was put in just to move along the story to a particular end and it bothered me somewhat.
Other than that though this book was fabulous. I think I'll see what else of Geraldine Brooks would be interesting to read.
4 comments:
I bookmooched this one and it should be here any day. I loved Brooks' book, March. It's about the Little Women's father during the Civil War.
Cassie, glad you liked this one as much as I did. For such a depressing subject, it was a remarkably uplifting book. Love the quotes.
It sounds amazing! I like that plot very much!
This does sound very interesting.
It's hard I suppose, when writing a novel so detailed into people's lives, to leave out sex altogether. But relying on it to keep people turning the pages can be a bit of a cop out.
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