Scan barcode
sparkin's review against another edition
5.0
This book is bleak. It goes into detail about the incredible suffering experienced by Sarah Graves and the rest of the Donner Party before, during and after the months they spent trapped in the Sierra Nevadas. It will leave you angry at the arrogance of the snake oil salesman who sent them on a dangerous road and heartbroken as you see the chain of bad decisions that got them stuck by the lake. At the same time, it's a really interesting look at life on the frontier and among emigrant communities just before the Gold Rush. It's mostly incredibly well written, too, and puts enough flesh on the bones of each person that you're really invested in what will happen to them.
I would say the epilogue is a weak spot, where the prose gets self-indulgent and overly flowery. Almost every paragraph follows the same structure, and I think the points made would be far more impactful if they were worked into the body of the narrative. Overall, though, this book is compulsive reading that left me thinking about Sarah Graves and the rest of the survivors for quite a while.
I would say the epilogue is a weak spot, where the prose gets self-indulgent and overly flowery. Almost every paragraph follows the same structure, and I think the points made would be far more impactful if they were worked into the body of the narrative. Overall, though, this book is compulsive reading that left me thinking about Sarah Graves and the rest of the survivors for quite a while.
raechel's review against another edition
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.5
This was an absolutely fascinating read about a horrible historical event. I realized I knew almost nothing about the Donner Party, and this book really walked the line between informative and narrative description. We follow Sarah Graves, a young, recently married woman following her family west on a doomed trek.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cannibalism
jk818's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
dmhayden76's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
rosa_lina96's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
One of my coworkers is actually distantly related to the Donner party--evidently one of her grandfathers was invited on the trip and (maybe wisely) decided not to go--and the information she's told me about the terrain in that part of California and the artifacts that still remain got me intrigued enough to check out this book. I loved Boys in the Boat by the same author, so I thought I would thoroughly enjoy this one as well.
And I did. But holy crap, is this book not for the faint of heart. It tells you more details about how starvation works than you'll ever want to know. It goes into excruciating detail about the challenges the early settlers faced, even before any of the calamities that happen to the Donner Party actually start happening, to the point where you start wondering why any sane person would want to load everything they own into a wagon and set off into untamed and stupidly rugged territory. These people have to have more mental fortitude than me. After the first canyon where they essentially had to bushwhack their way along the entire route, I would have gone "whelp, I don't think this route is all it's cracked up to be, I'm actually quite comfortable being where I am now, sayonara" and turned my ass quite thoroughly around. To know that they kept persevering, kept going even when every single odd seemed stacked against them, was both inspiring and a little sobering.
It followed the trend I've seen in a lot of disaster books, too--the idea that if just one of a multitude of factors was changed, maybe it wouldn't have turned out quite so badly for everyone involved. Maybe if they'd never taken the shortcut that was proposed in the first place, it wouldn't have turned out the way it did. All we can do is guess.
Overall, this was a beautifully descriptive and haunting book that made me appreciate the little luxuries we take for granted in our modern world (and made me want to visit that part of California sometime soon, but only in the dead of summer when the weather is halfway decent). Highly recommended.
And I did. But holy crap, is this book not for the faint of heart. It tells you more details about how starvation works than you'll ever want to know. It goes into excruciating detail about the challenges the early settlers faced, even before any of the calamities that happen to the Donner Party actually start happening, to the point where you start wondering why any sane person would want to load everything they own into a wagon and set off into untamed and stupidly rugged territory. These people have to have more mental fortitude than me. After the first canyon where they essentially had to bushwhack their way along the entire route, I would have gone "whelp, I don't think this route is all it's cracked up to be, I'm actually quite comfortable being where I am now, sayonara" and turned my ass quite thoroughly around. To know that they kept persevering, kept going even when every single odd seemed stacked against them, was both inspiring and a little sobering.
It followed the trend I've seen in a lot of disaster books, too--the idea that if just one of a multitude of factors was changed, maybe it wouldn't have turned out quite so badly for everyone involved. Maybe if they'd never taken the shortcut that was proposed in the first place, it wouldn't have turned out the way it did. All we can do is guess.
Overall, this was a beautifully descriptive and haunting book that made me appreciate the little luxuries we take for granted in our modern world (and made me want to visit that part of California sometime soon, but only in the dead of summer when the weather is halfway decent). Highly recommended.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cannibalism, Child death, Death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Murder and Animal death
Minor: Fire/Fire injury
patchespapercut's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
5.0
readingwmiles's review against another edition
2.0
i really wanted to like this but i was just underwhelmed. the writing of this just didn’t engage me, although there were some good moments. i started reading on my kindle but i wasn’t connecting with the writing, switching to the audiobook didn’t help much. i understand there were many people involved in the donner party but i often felt lost in a sea of names reading this. because i wasn’t engaged i didn’t absorb much from this :/