Year of Wonders
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Recommended By
Rebecca Adler, Amy Miller Burgess, and Heather.
Planning on Reading
Emily S., Danette Ricks, and MUtopia.
Book Details
Written by Geraldine Brooks.
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($15.00)
Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. Written with stunning emotional intelligence and introducing "an inspiring heroine" (The Wall Street Journal), Brooks blends love and learning, loss and renewal into a spellbinding and unforgettable read.
"The novel glitters . . . A deep imaginative engagement with how people are changed by catastrophe." (The New Yorker)
"Year of Wonders is a vividly imagined and strangely consoling tale of hope in a time of despair." (O, The Oprah Magazine)
"Brooks proves a gifted storyteller as she subtly reveals how ignorance, hatred and mistrust can be as deadly as any virus. . . . Year of Wonders is itself a wonder." (People )
User Reviews (2) Login or create an account to write a review.
Amy Miller Burgess thinks this book is Excellent.
REally gorgeous. In a small English village in the 17th century, the plague strikes. At turns achingly sad (without getting shmaltzy, I hate shmaltzy) horrific, hopeful and tragic. I just loved it. Beautifully written.
Rebecca Adler thinks this book is Excellent.
Year of Wonders is a historical novel about a small English town 100 miles outside of London. It's the year 1666, and the town has been struck by plague, brought to them by a London tailor boarding with our narrator, Anna. The village is so remote that when the plague first appears the villagers don't recognize it for what it is. Once they learn the horrors of the disease, the villagers are asked to make a decision whether to flee in order to save themselves, or to stay put in order to keep the disease from spreading any further.
In the end, everyone in the village agrees to stay, aside from the only rich family in town - the only family with the means to run far from the reaches of the disease. As we follow the rest of the town through its year of isolation, we watch Anna, who begins as a lowly maid, transformed into a strong woman who the town begins to depend on for herbal remedies to just about every malady, in addition to becoming the only midwife in town (after an unfortunate incident that leaves the former midwife dead).
When I first saw this book I knew it was going to be an easy read, merely because of its length (only 336 pages!). What I didn't know was how much I'd enjoy reading it. This book packed in a ton of information, along with many vivid scenes. Time and again I found myself being shocked by how much I learned from this book and how many different places/people were described in so few pages. Brooks is an amazing writer for both her economy of words and her ability to tell a story well. Also, she does a wonderful job of using old English without it seeming cumbersome. I have read other historical books and been completely put off by them because it's so difficult for me to figure out what the characters are saying to each other.
I really enjoyed watching Anna grow as a person. One of my favorite parts of the book was when she went to the mine with Elinor (her partner in seeking herbal remedies to the plague) to save Merry from losing her family's mine. I was surprised Brooks made these women so independent in a novel about the 17th century, but in the interviews with her in the back of the book she talks about the necessity of women taking a leading role during that time and the fact that women were starting to gain more freedom during that century in England.
There were some cringe-worthy moments in this book - from the witch hangings to a couple of scenes where women are physically abused - but I think it added to the authenticity of the book. We live in such a sterile world today, it was difficult for me to imagine what it would be like to live in such a dirty place while trying to fight a fatal disease.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I would definitely recommend it (and already have forced it upon a number of friends). The one thing that really disappointed me was the epilogue, although that was pretty much because it went against what I had imagined and what I was expecting to happen. Normally I'd be glad about this because I hate when books are too predictable (and I probably would have said it was predictable if it had ended the way I had expected it to, so I don't know why I'm complaining), but after all the death and destruction in this novel, I guess I kind of wanted a couple of people to end up "happily ever after."