Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

11 reviews

ginabyeg's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book will definitely give you a taste of nursing in the early 1900’s. Story is fast-paced, engaging from the start, told from the perspective of a still-single nurse in the maternity ward during the 1918-pandemic. Some parts get rather graphic. There are themes of life/death, trauma, and religion. While the book was published in 2020, the author had finished it before that time. I find this makes the character’s insights in the book even more powerful, somehow, and the parallels between then and now extra startling.

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isaaah's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75


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clemrain's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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kathleencoughlin's review against another edition

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

3.5

A bit close for comfort at the moment. I liked the story overall, but I'm a bit tired of
reading queer love interests die.

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carolinebrooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0


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absolutive's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This novel, set in a maternity/fever ward in Dublin in 1918, did not pull me in right away. I twice started it and had trouble focusing. But on the third try I found it riveting, reading it in two days. The novel is set over the course of three days and follows Nurse Julia Power as she cares for pregnant women with the Great Influenza. Each day she improvises, saves lives and is powerless to stop death, using her knowledge and experience and kindness in an utterly overwhelmed and devastated health system. Also in the novel is the real life activist and doctor Kathleen Lynn whose own mastery in politics and medicine rise above Nurse Power, but who is also powerless at times, both in the hospital and against the police; the young, exploited and utterly effective, competent and sympathetic Bridie Sweeney; the whole system of Catholic control over morality, women's bodies, and the babies of poor and unwed mothers; the women on the ward, who along with Nurse Power, Bridie and Dr. Lynn form a small community, constrained by War, Pandemic, British Imperialism and cruel Catholic morality, living, caring and dying together. 

The novel not only explores the stories of people often left untold--poor women in Dublin, children of the unwed, for example--but also queer stories in an unusual and highly effective way. No one would call this a queer novel, I think, but by the end of the novel one must say that it is the story of four queer people living in Dublin when people didn't talk openly about this. This realisation occurs slowly and it's implicit, it's something the novel is lightly building towards but which does not emerge on the ward, hidden from view, like these lives themselves, but which, like the hidden stars, pulls the narrative forward. 

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eniatea's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0


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sarah984's review against another edition

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emotional informative medium-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? No

3.0

This book is about a nurse working in a makeshift maternity ward in Ireland during the Spanish flu pandemic. The medicine parts of it were interesting (though not for the faint-hearted) and I liked most of the characters, though there are a few that I wish had gotten a bit more screen time. A lot of social issues in Ireland at the time are brought up and discussed in a way that mostly feels organic. 

The last third was just too much for me though, way too soap opera-ish for me with all the romance and drama crammed into two days. After the weight of the rest of the book it felt kind of silly.

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unphilosophize's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I Cannot currently express to you how much I loved this book. 
It is tragic and emotional. 
I really enjoyed all the obstetrics in the book, especially as my mum was a nurse in the nicu 
Great characters
I’ll think about this book a lot 

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veeronald's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative sad fast-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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