Reviews with content warning for Body shaming - Haven

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Haven by Emma Donoghue

10 reviews

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Skellig Michael is stark and austere, a seemingly uninhabitable rock off the coast of Ireland where a monastery was established sometime between the sixth and eighth centuries. A lightly fictionalised version of that island is the setting for Haven, in which Emma Donoghue imagines the establishment of a monastery by just three men - Artt, a learned and strict priest, and two monks selected by him. Cormac is an older man who came to the monastery late in life after a colourful life blighted by personal losses, while Trian is a mere youth and more than a little awkward who was placed in the monastery by his parents when he was 13. Haven is a slow moving novel with little in the way of plot - plenty of details about killing birds for food, constructing buildings and a large cross with rock, and copying manuscripts. The real interest for me lay with the three men, seeing their personalities reveal themselves as they adapted to their spartan existence, witnessing their different understandings of their faith, and most especially seeing the relationships between the three play out. I especially enjoyed seeing Cormac and Trian support each other against the puritanical, sometimes cruel, and often impractical Artt. I also loved the atmosphere Donoghue brought to life on the page - claustrophobic, sometimes tense, isolated, unwelcoming, inhospitable, plus the feeling of always being judged and found lacking.

This won’t be a book for every reader and I did have some quibbles, including a gender related plot point that was introduced late in the novel but never fully developed. But, somewhat to my surprise, I’ve recently enjoyed a few quiet, literary historical novels centred around characters exploration and expression of faith - so long as they don’t strike me as prosletising. I can now add Haven to that list.

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ceruleanseas's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

vireogirl's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This author is very good at finding perspectives I’ve never contemplated before.
Lots of birds mentioned.

Content Warnings

smaravetz's review

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adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

hmatt's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Fantastic characterization and a deliberately slow-moving plot that really serves its purpose of putting you in the headspace of (well, two of) the monks.

Content Warnings

julie_sapienza's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

dystopia's review

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adventurous reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

kelly_e's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Title: Haven
Author: Emma Donoghue
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 4.0
Pub Date: August 23, 2022

T H R E E • W O R D S

Patient • Timely • Riveting

📖 S Y N O P S I S

In seventh-century Ireland, three men vow to leave the world behind. They set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them. What they find is the extraordinary island now known as Skellig Michael. The steep, rocky terrain and bare island is unforgiving, and the three must band together in order to survive.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Emma Donoghue is an auto-buy author for me, so it will be no surprise that Haven was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. If you'd have asked me if a book based in religion set in 600 AD would interest me, my first impulse would have been to say no. Yet, Donoghue has a way of taking the most uninteresting plot and making it shine.

The strength is in the evocative writing style and the vivid island atmosphere. This is a slow-moving narrative, where not a whole lot happens, yet I was captivated by the journey of these three characters. It is a story of faith and devotion, while also raising issues of gender, survival, and needs versus wants.

Haven was definitely not my favourite Emma Donoghue book, yet one of the reasons I love her writing is that each book is so different from the last. Don't let the synopsis keep you from picking up was is at its heart a story of isolation, spirituality and survival.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• Emma Donoghue devotees
• readers who enjoy isolated stories of survival

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"To travel is to turn the pages of the great book of life."

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tamara_joy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

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alylentz's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I've read a handful of Emma Donoghue's books and am always surprised and intrigued by what she'll write next. This one was difficult to read not because it was boring or uninteresting to me, but because it is a sad and brutal story that doesn't pull any punches. Just when you think things can't get worse for the characters, they do, every time. However, I think the character work here is truly expert, as Donoghue's books always are. My investment in them kept me turning the pages, and the familial relationship that forms between Cormac and Trian and leads us to the climax is something that will definitely stick with me. I would recommend this book to readers who like survival stories, books with a slow build, and titles that contemplate religion and its limits.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

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