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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4965.Year_of_Wonders?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Year of Wonders" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165517036m/4965.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4965.Year_of_Wonders?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Year of Wonders</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/211268.Geraldine_Brooks">Geraldine Brooks</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/27402643?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars Ah me, I'm afraid I had to reach for the smelling salts many times during Brooks' depiction of the plague's rampage through a small village in central England in the year 1666. The village and it's heroic decision to isolate itself to prevent the spread of the Black Death to other parts of the country is a reality. The characters spring to full-blown life from the author's imagination: preachers, servant girls, noble people who take on the roles of "heavies", Puritans, Anglicans, Ancients and children, and most vividly drawn, witches performing white and black magic.
 
 Like THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, this novel is painstaking in its detailed research. The Plague comes to the village on a bolt of material a tailor brought from London. The tailor is a lodger with a young widow, the narrator and so, naturally, a survivor of the Year of Wonder. Wonder is a many layered choice for the title: first, it describes the miracle of living through such horrors but I suggest it describes the philosophical question, the "why" about suffering that has asked since myth making began.
 
 It did not take great powers of deduction to guess where the story was going since Anna opens her narrative after the worst has happened, and she is attending to the Preacher, strong, silent and virtuous. However, let me state that this is no Harlequin Romance and surprises and yes, wonders, occur before the final page.
 
 But let me get back to my queasy stomach and attacks of the vapors. Brooks did her homework too well: we read about the boils and the blood and the piteous deaths of children and old folk. It seems the middle aged often had the stamina to live through or past the epidemic. As if this were not enough, several other varieties of deaths come to life with sickening verisimiltude. Just warning, not spoiling, that you keep one of those airplane bags nearby. Childbirths are not omitted nor unique and hideous punishments meted out to those who extorted their fellow man and those innocent women herbalists who were branded as Satinist.
 
 This is not a book for the faint of heart but it is informative and its fictions rest on actual happenings during that Fateful Year.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/453699?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Gina's review
rating:

Ah me, I'm afraid I had to reach for the smelling salts many times during Brooks' depiction of the plague's rampage through a small village in central England in the year 1666. The village and it's heroic decision to isolate itself to prevent the spread of the Black Death to other parts of the country is a reality. The characters spring to full-blown life from the author's imagination: preachers, servant girls, noble people who take on the roles of "heavies", Puritans, Anglicans, Ancients and children, and most vividly drawn, witches performing white and black magic.

Like THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, this novel is painstaking in its detailed research. The Plague comes to the village on a bolt of material a tailor brought from London. The tailor is a lodger with a young widow, the narrator and so, naturally, a survivor of the Year of Wonder. Wonder is a many layered choice for the title: first, it describes the miracle of living through such horrors but I suggest it ...more Ah me, I'm afraid I had to reach for the smelling salts many times during Brooks' depiction of the plague's rampage through a small village in central England in the year 1666. The village and it's heroic decision to isolate itself to prevent the spread of the Black Death to other parts of the country is a reality. The characters spring to full-blown life from the author's imagination: preachers, servant girls, noble people who take on the roles of "heavies", Puritans, Anglicans, Ancients and children, and most vividly drawn, witches performing white and black magic.

Like THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, this novel is painstaking in its detailed research. The Plague comes to the village on a bolt of material a tailor brought from London. The tailor is a lodger with a young widow, the narrator and so, naturally, a survivor of the Year of Wonder. Wonder is a many layered choice for the title: first, it describes the miracle of living through such horrors but I suggest it describes the philosophical question, the "why" about suffering that has asked since myth making began.

It did not take great powers of deduction to guess where the story was going since Anna opens her narrative after the worst has happened, and she is attending to the Preacher, strong, silent and virtuous. However, let me state that this is no Harlequin Romance and surprises and yes, wonders, occur before the final page.

But let me get back to my queasy stomach and attacks of the vapors. Brooks did her homework too well: we read about the boils and the blood and the piteous deaths of children and old folk. It seems the middle aged often had the stamina to live through or past the epidemic. As if this were not enough, several other varieties of deaths come to life with sickening verisimiltude. Just warning, not spoiling, that you keep one of those airplane bags nearby. Childbirths are not omitted nor unique and hideous punishments meted out to those who extorted their fellow man and those innocent women herbalists who were branded as Satinist.

This is not a book for the faint of heart but it is informative and its fictions rest on actual happenings during that Fateful Year....less

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message 1: by Rachel

07/19/2008 08:01PM

another good review, and another one your review may just have persuaded me of weak stomach not to pick up....!