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Mar 27, 2011

Barbara rated it:

The subjects of immigration and maturation have been dealt with in a most compelling manner in this gentle, flowing novel by Colm Toibin. Eilis Lacey, in her late teens, has crossed the ocean alone from her small, close knit town in Ireland to a totally foreign world in Brooklyn. Toibin has deftly woven each experience in a realistic, sometimes heart rending manner. The descriptions of Eilis's homesickness are some of the most tender yet raw, sweet yet sad, completely evocative pages that I have More...

14 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2011

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it:

A beautiful story, a careful, slow build of character. Impeccable writing - spare, intense, precise. Deceptively simple at the sentence level; yet so perfectly matched to the character Toibin is creating and the story he is telling. This writing is stunning in its simplicity and its power.

Eilis is a wonderful protagonist, whose inner conflicts are shown through her experiences. At the same time, Toibin takes us into her head and lets us see how she works through major decision point More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

Marvelously simple, yet deceptively complex. The writing is remarkable for its descriptive clarity. Not one word is wasted.

I think what will determine your experience of this book is whether or not you can relate in any way to Eilis, the main character. I'm a completely different person(and I do mean completely) than I was when I was her age. As I was reading, I cast my mind back to the time I was her age and I knew I probably would have responded much the same if I had been thrown More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2009

Jacquelyn rated it:

This book is about a young woman from Ireland who moves to Brooklyn in the 1950s for more job opportunities. The book is mostly about this girl growing and finding herself in a new city. The interactions between the characters is definitely the best part of the book, since all the charaters were well developed, and their various expectations of this girl. It was very interesting to see how this girl evolved and found her place in a new country. However, I was disappointed in the last section of More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2010

Chuck rated it:

"You can't go home again." Or can you? Perhaps it depends on where (or what) home is. Colm Tóibín explores this theme in his beautifully crafted tale of a young woman who emigrates in the 1950s from her home in Enniscorthy, Ireland to Brooklyn, New York. She struggles to make a life for herself in her new world, but just as she finds a high level of comfort in America, a family emergency summons her back to Ireland. There she finds herself deeply torn between her old home and her More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 17, 2011

Alanna rated it:

What an interesting read. Toibin's style of writing is like nothing I've ever read before. In some ways it seemIMHO simple, and then there'd be passages where he described his protagonist's feelings, and it was like he understood her so well it would take my breath away. And although it's a fairly simple story that often feels like it's unfolding with or without anyone deciding how things should happen (especially at the beginning, when it is decided that Eilis should go to America), I still More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 13, 2011

Lavinia rated it:

For what it's worth, the action could have taken place at the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th or during the Great Depression. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I didn't feel the '50s, and I mean that in the good way. I was absorbed by the story and the characters - and Brooklyn and the small Irish town are themselves characters - and if you ask me, the 4th part is what makes everything worth reading. Of course the other 3 are interesting - Eilis' decision to leave Ireland More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2010

Seán rated it:

Tóibín's greatest talent is in offering up deceptively simple tales that, on first blush, seem to be engaging yet not terribly portentous stories, but then open up wide when you realize the hidden dynamism of Colm's self-denying heroes.

I've also read The Heather Blazing and The Master, and in each Tóibín employs a laconic method of storytelling to explore the weaknesses that occlude people's vision. In The Master, Tóibín's achievement was the careful revealing of the sorrow of a repr More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

May 08, 2010

Becky rated it:

Gentle and subtly suspenseful book about an Irish immigrant girl in Brooklyn in the early 1950s - 1951? Be forewarned that it’s a tear-jerker. Toibin writes beautifully and the structure is straightforward. The issues of Catholicism and national pride ring true. Home and grief and love are important themes.

Plot: A visiting priest arranges for the young Eilis to go to the US in order to have a better future for herself. She leaves her poor Irish home and in New York unde More...

8 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 31, 2009

Jeff rated it:

The premise of "Brooklyn" is not new; however, it"feels" new in Colm Toibin's capable, talented hands. I found the novel highly engaging, beautifully written, and absolutely delightful.

"Brooklyn" tells the story of Eilis Lacey, an Irish girl from a small village who emigrates to the U.S. with hopes of bettering her life and career with opportunities afforded in the new world. The young emigre's story is told with such straightforwardness and simplicity More...

4 comments like (15 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2010

Ann rated it:

I'm about midway through this, but I don't know that I've ever read a more accurate and painful essence of homesickness--I kind of wept on the F train this morning. The description is right up there with the cinematic depictions of the mental states of drunkenness in Mean Streets and jet lag in Lost in Translation.

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2011

Lucy_van_pelt rated it:

Wow, I would have never thought I'd like this as I couldn't even finish The Master. This is completely different, the writing style is extremely bare & matter of fact. There is no hidden agenda. Very affecting.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Peggy rated it:

Although I vacilated between sympathizing with the main character and wondering at her thought processes, in the end, I was disappointed in her behavior, choices and the ending of this book.

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2011

Carinya rated it:

The book Brooklyn is at face value a simple sweet love story with an uncomplicated multi cultural theme. It details the thoughts and actions of very ordinary people going about their business and lives during the 1940s and 50s in Ireland and Brooklyn, USA. The author, Colm Toibin, sees the world through the eyes of his heroine Eilis. He possesses an uncanny insight into the small banal details that would have the most impact on Eilis. She is a character who floats along, living each day armed wi More...

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Nov 27, 2011

David rated it:

Brooklyn inspires me to think about the history of making choices in personal lives. At midcentury, when this book is set, the limits of free will were bounded by faith and moral judgment, by biology, guilt, and suffocating beliefs. Sin appeared in hard common parlance, yet forgiveness was more obscure. Perhaps ignorance ought to be cited as well, but it was part of the accusatory landscape, a given element of the time, like cigarettes and alcohol. People made poor choices simply to resolve More...

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Nov 23, 2011

Lorinda rated it:

I saw the name Colm Toibin cited in a sentence along with Colum McCann and I knew I had to buy one of his books. Brooklyn is set in the early 1950's and some people comment on the slow pace of the novel but it seems entirely appropriate to me. Toibin is a master at structuring the plot but the real interest comes from the thoughts inside the main character's head as she meets people and scans her new environment.

When she first meets her new boyfriend's parents and brothers: "She More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 17, 2011

Jacquelynn rated it:

Brooklyn tells the story of Eilis, the younger daughter of an Irish Catholic family, just leaving school. Her older sister, Rose, has a good job, and the impression given is that the family - that is, the two sisters and their mother - are not flush with money and it is important that Eilis and her sister are both in work to maintain the family. Their brothers are already working in England. Despite the difficulties of getting jobs, there is no feeling that the family are on the breadline. O More...

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Oct 19, 2011

Sara rated it:

I thought I'd read enough reviews of this novel before picking it up to know what I was getting into: in the depressed 1950s in Ireland, a somewhat wallflowerish, small-town Irish girl is sent by her family, perhaps against her will and definitely in contradiction of what she understands her personality to be, to Brooklyn, New York, to work. From what I'd heard about the book, she goes to New York, blossoms surprisingly, and then is forced to return to Ireland after a family crisis. That's kind More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

Peter rated it:

"I had to read this for a book club. It is the tale of an Irishwoman in the 1950s who immigrates to New York, makes a life for herself, and after a visit back home, contemplates returning to Ireland permanently.

While not bad, I found the style of the novel simplistic, even annoying at times. Toibin was trying to communicate Eilis's reticent and reserved personality, but she seemed mostly dull and maddeningly conventional. It also seemed like it was written at a fifth grade le More...

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Sep 29, 2011

dubh rated it:

Eilis Lacey lebt mit ihrer Mutter und ihrer Schwester Rose in Enniscorthy, Irland. Ihre drei Brüder sind allesamt nach England gezogen, da sie dort Arbeit gefunden haben, und ihr Vater ist bereits vor einigen Jahren verstorben. Eilis selbst findet in ihrer Heimatstadt keine Arbeit und so muss die ältere Schwester für Eilis und ihre Mutter aufkommen.
Als ein Priester aus den USA auf Heimatbesuch kommt, geht alles recht schnell: Rose und die Mutter beschließen, dass Eilis nach New York soll um More...

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Sep 25, 2011

Lisa rated it:

This was an adult novel that I read for my adult literature book club. I don't think I ever would have picked up this novel on my own, but I am glad that I read it.

As most of you know I usually read young adult literature but I used to read a ton of adult literature too before I started blogging. So when I picked up this novel I was swept away by it. There was a different tone to it than YA books and it was like a drink of water I desperately needed.

I absolutely ador More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 15, 2011

Gemma rated it:

I have been saving this book for some unspecified time and now, having just travelled in America and been living abroad as well, was the perfect time. I absolutely loved this book. I enjoyed the voice of the narrator, her moves towards adulthood as the book goes on, the novels frankness and unassuming pure storyline. There are no hidden morals or apologies or even dramatic conclusions and yet the personal nature of the story is emotionally intense and acutely described. It is a perfect expressio More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 04, 2011

christa rated it:

The end of August my boyfriend and I were in New York City, waiting for Hurricane Irene to blink. We spent two of our five day vacation trying to figure out if we should wait out the storm, potentially arm-wrestling the natives for bottled water and pork rind rations, or cut it short and ditch back to the safety of our hurricane-free lives in Duluth.

We left, but not before I played a version of “Super Market Sweep” through Park Slope bookstores. Towering over a table of Brooklyn-speci More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Aug 30, 2011

Brian rated it:

Set in the 1950s, partly in Enniscorthy, Ireland, and partly in Brooklyn USA, this is the story of Eilis, a young woman who emigrates from her homeland because of the lack of opportunities. In both Ireland and America she finds herself emotionally entangled with men who want to marry her and she has to make a choice.

That's more or less the whole plot. Nevertheless, this is the best book I've read for ages. It's beautifully written with such clarity and attention to detail. I was remi More...

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Jul 29, 2011

Catherine added it

Eilis is a likable heroine, and her story is remarkable in that it is relatively recent--it could be my parents story if they had not been born here--the opportunities in 1950's Ireland are not available for someone without education or connections--a priest from America offers Eilis an opportunity and a sponsorship of sorts and she takes it. She is likable--not dull but not womeone who is wild either. She volunteers at the church on Xmas. She doesn't much consort with her fellow boarders, and More...

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Jul 24, 2011

Susan rated it:

In the early 1950s, Eilis Lacey cannot find work as a bookkeeper in her small home town of Enniscorthy Ireland. A NY priest arranges for her to emigrate and work in Brooklyn. Eilis is lonely and homesick at first, but with the help of a compassionate landlady, her employer and Father Flood, she becomes active and interested in her new life in Brooklyn. Eilis meets a kind and gentle Italian man, and they build a relationship. When tragic news calls Eilis back to Ireland, she feels strange at firs More...

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Jul 06, 2011

Michelle rated it:

Oh man... this one got me. Written, as my friend Donna would describe, in a BBC, counting matchsticks style, about a post-WWII young,Irish immigrant woman, newly transplanted in Brooklyn, has a way of sneaking up on you and grabbing one's heart. Well, it grabbed mine anyway!

Toibin's writing style reminds me much of other subtle yet engrossing books. Old Filth, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, and Olive Kitteridge come to mind. Perhaps it is a Brittish style. I don't quite know how More...

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Jul 02, 2011

Book Concierge rated it:

This slim novel is set in the early 1950s. Eilis is just finishing her studies, living at home in a small town in Ireland with her widowed mother and older sister, Rose. Her three brothers have all gone to England for work. Rose encourages Eilis to get more training in bookkeeping, so she might have a good office job one day, and Eilis goes along with this plan. When an opportunity presents itself for Eilis to go to America for a better job, Rose encourages her to do so. The parish priest sees More...

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Jun 04, 2011

Andi rated it:

This book was handed to me by a friend who knows how much I love all things Irish and New York. This WAS both and from an historical point of view the portrait of the lives at the time in both places was interesting. The book started somewhere around the second chapter instead of the beginning and ended just before the climax. I felt the ending was rushed and really not well planned. I never really fell in love with any of the characters mostly because there was no real introduction to the heroi More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2011

Geoffrey rated it:

A sweet, gentle story of an Irish girl who migrates in the 1950s from her small town to bustling and multi-ethnic Brooklyn, learns to cope, finds a nice Italian-American guy, returns to Ireland for a wake and a visit and is briefly torn between slipping back into the familiar comforts of the old place and returning to her new life back in Brooklyn. Though written by a man, this is a woman's book, told from Eilis Lacey's point of view and mostly about her relations with other girls and women, who More...

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