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sispud's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
cohenstacey's review against another edition
4.0
3.9/5. The ending was way too rushed for me and needed all of what happened in Part 4 to be sloowwwwwed down and with more depth. I suppose when the author writes it was edited and on the shelves in 4 months we know where corners were cut! Otherwise, a lovely and educational read!
mollyj099's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
jennicajackson's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
siria's review against another edition
2.25
The Pull of the Stars is set over three days in a small ward in a maternity hospital in Dublin—from context clues I'm guessing it's supposed to be the Rotunda—in late 1918. The First World War is in its final weeks, but the deadly flu pandemic is just getting going.
Though marketed as literary fiction, this read like Maeve Binchy writing a novelisation of an episode of Call the Midwife: all sentimentality and symphysiotomies. Emma Donoghue clearly did a lot of research on early 20th-century Ireland in general and midwifery techniques in particular for this book, but she neither wore that research lightly nor conveyed it fluidly to the reader.
Take for example how Donoghue introduces Kathleen Lynn (per the blurb, one of the book's major characters but really much more of a featured role):
Though marketed as literary fiction, this read like Maeve Binchy writing a novelisation of an episode of Call the Midwife: all sentimentality and symphysiotomies. Emma Donoghue clearly did a lot of research on early 20th-century Ireland in general and midwifery techniques in particular for this book, but she neither wore that research lightly nor conveyed it fluidly to the reader.
Take for example how Donoghue introduces Kathleen Lynn (per the blurb, one of the book's major characters but really much more of a featured role):
Groyne, any word of when we can expect to see this new doctor?
Ah, the lady rebel! [...] He asked, Haven't you heard of her?
You're implying she's one of the Sinn Féiners?
(The Gaelic phrase meant us-aloners. They went around ranting that home rule wouldn't be enough now; nothing would content them but a breakaway republic.)
Implying nothing, Groyne told me. Miss Lynn's a vicar's daughter from Mayo gone astray—a socialist, suffragette, anarchist firebrand!
At best you could describe this kind of exposition as efficient, but even then it's clunky. Like who is that parenthetical for? Why would anyone in 1910s Ireland pause to clarify who SF are in their internal monologue? Surely if Donoghue was worried that she'd have readers who wouldn't know anything about this time and place, there were ways she could convey context in a subtler and more nuanced way.
When typing up that excerpt, by the way, I didn't forget to include the punctuation for the dialogue—that was a deliberate choice on Donoghue's part. Every time I realised part way through a sentence that I'd mistaken dialogue for prose, or mentally attributed a sentence to the wrong speaker, I had to start it again and felt irritated every time.
A wasted premise.
pixiebix's review against another edition
3.25
First thing I think when trying to summarise this book: it would adapt perfectly to the screen. I can 100% imagine it as a three-episode BBC drama: WWI backdrop; the chaos of a stockroom-turned-maternity-ward in the throes of a pandemic; the fever and claustrophobia of our MC--the only nurse in her makeshift three-patient hospital--rushing from one woman to the next as they swoon with their flu and advanced pregnancies.
In book form, The Pull of the Stars felt repetitive, but not dull. The first 200-250 pages is just the minute by minute account of a nurse dealing with emergency after emergency. Some emergencies present themselves as very clearly that--an emergency--things progressing at a terrifying and breakneck pace; others present themselves too late. This is engaging at times--I was very much on the edge of my seat on several occasions, when something really unexpected happened--but after a while of problem after problem, there comes a point where you develop a sort of apathy towards what's going on--maybe not physiologically, but mentally. My eyes still hungrily roved across the pages, but cognitively, I was a little switched off.
There is also the fact that the final 50 or so pages introduce a total change of pace. Things happened so quickly, I almost didn't feel like I could absorb any of it as it was happening. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and was almost definitely intentional on the author's part, but still, it did make for a bit of a disorientating reading experience (meaning, I didn't find myself being too moved).
Something else worth noting: Room is the only other book by Emma Donaghue I have read, and wow, The Pull of the Stars shows just how versatile her writing is. Donaghue effortlessly wrote from the perspective of a twenty-first century five-year-old child locked in a shed for all his life by his mother's rapist and captor in Room, and here, she writes (equally effortlessly) from the perspective of an Edwardian nurse in the midst of an influenza. Amazing stuff.
Overall: a book that will very much stick with me and I will enjoy thinking about, but that maybe (for a short time) lost my attention every so often (I blame my too-sensitive and impatient dopamine receptors).
In book form, The Pull of the Stars felt repetitive, but not dull. The first 200-250 pages is just the minute by minute account of a nurse dealing with emergency after emergency. Some emergencies present themselves as very clearly that--an emergency--things progressing at a terrifying and breakneck pace; others present themselves too late. This is engaging at times--I was very much on the edge of my seat on several occasions, when something really unexpected happened--but after a while of problem after problem, there comes a point where you develop a sort of apathy towards what's going on--maybe not physiologically, but mentally. My eyes still hungrily roved across the pages, but cognitively, I was a little switched off.
There is also the fact that the final 50 or so pages introduce a total change of pace. Things happened so quickly, I almost didn't feel like I could absorb any of it as it was happening. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and was almost definitely intentional on the author's part, but still, it did make for a bit of a disorientating reading experience (meaning, I didn't find myself being too moved).
Something else worth noting: Room is the only other book by Emma Donaghue I have read, and wow, The Pull of the Stars shows just how versatile her writing is. Donaghue effortlessly wrote from the perspective of a twenty-first century five-year-old child locked in a shed for all his life by his mother's rapist and captor in Room, and here, she writes (equally effortlessly) from the perspective of an Edwardian nurse in the midst of an influenza. Amazing stuff.
Overall: a book that will very much stick with me and I will enjoy thinking about, but that maybe (for a short time) lost my attention every so often (I blame my too-sensitive and impatient dopamine receptors).
aliterarygoodtime's review
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma, Death, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Pregnancy, Child death, Blood, Classism, and Grief
natashiataylor's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-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
paddyo1993's review against another edition
4.0
Pull of the (3.5) Stars was a slow start but really picked up towards the middle of the novel! Very graphic imagery of life in a flu/maternity ward but it was a really exciting, fast-paced narrative which kept me intrigued!
The ending was a bit rushed and a little corny, but I enjoyed her writing style and how she weaved in Irish culture and societal issues in the early years of the State into the plot!
The ending was a bit rushed and a little corny, but I enjoyed her writing style and how she weaved in Irish culture and societal issues in the early years of the State into the plot!