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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 :/
ailynobaire's review against another edition
A story that stood out to me in the many stories I’ve read of the American frontier. The novel tests your empathy and your ability to humanize in a time and place largely foreign to a modern reader. We may understand what happened to these people but we will never really get it. What they went through proves the courage and tenacity of the human spirit, even once it’s been taken apart and tested again and again, beyond reason. The epilogue from the writer’s perspective felt awkward and unnecessary, but he was coming from a good place. A good read overall. An incredible amount of research must of been done to write this.
torriebug's review against another edition
5.0
"Under the blankets, Lemuel Murphy finally quieted down. His sister, sobbing, held his head in her lap until, at about 2:00 A.M., he ceased breathing. Then they rolled his body out into the moonlit snow and closed the circle tighter, down to ten now. The next day they set about the task of butchering meat."
Haunting from start to finish. Brown did such an incredible job of depicting the tragedy of the Donner Party, relying on his own experiences backtracking their trail. Even though this is a nonfiction, it kept me captivated the entire time without sensationalizing it. If you read any nonfiction this year, let it be this!
Haunting from start to finish. Brown did such an incredible job of depicting the tragedy of the Donner Party, relying on his own experiences backtracking their trail. Even though this is a nonfiction, it kept me captivated the entire time without sensationalizing it. If you read any nonfiction this year, let it be this!
fedak's review against another edition
3.0
Well researched, but tended to meander into minutia or asides far too often
It is also in desperate need of an annotated map- I'm a Tahoe local and still found myself stopping frequently to Google many of the locations in the narrative
It is also in desperate need of an annotated map- I'm a Tahoe local and still found myself stopping frequently to Google many of the locations in the narrative
ryner's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
medium-paced
4.0
The tragedy of the Donner Party of 1846 has been told numerous times in varying degrees of research and detail. In this 2010 version, Brown opts to narrate this disaster and survival story from the perspective of Sarah Graves, a new bride traveling west with her family and her new husband. They make the catastrophic choice to join up with another trail party whose fate would still be remembered with a shudder more than 150 years later.
Brown has presented a thoroughly researched, balanced and well-written portrayal of the circumstances, personalities, decisions and aftermath. It's funny — this is the fourth Donner Party narrative I've read now, and in each instance there has been a fanciful part of my brain that feels hopeful that *this time* they will make different choices that lead to a less tragic outcome. Alas, that never happens. I do feel rather an expert now on the subject, though.
Brown has presented a thoroughly researched, balanced and well-written portrayal of the circumstances, personalities, decisions and aftermath. It's funny — this is the fourth Donner Party narrative I've read now, and in each instance there has been a fanciful part of my brain that feels hopeful that *this time* they will make different choices that lead to a less tragic outcome. Alas, that never happens. I do feel rather an expert now on the subject, though.
mirandarocks's review against another edition
5.0
Holy fuck this book was amazing. Such a horrific and harrowing story, made even worse because it actually happened. But the storytelling was incredible and despite the terrible subject matter, the story itself was beautifully written. Highly recommend.