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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
I wanted to like this book so badly. I was sucked into the historical time of the flu but I couldn't get through the paragraphs upon paragraphs of descriptions. There was very little dialogue which I enjoy to break up these long paragraphs. Maybe I can try this book again at a later time. 3 stars
An incredibly tragic, engrossing, hopeful story of a young girl trying to find her missing family during the Spanish Influenza of 1918. Pia is a remarkable and enduring heroine, and the themes of love and family are so moving and relevant as our present-day pandemic rages around us.
Ellen Marie Wiseman's The Orphan Collector was incredible to read. The highest of highs, the lowest of lows. Parts of this novel were horrific to read... just considering how orphans were treated historically. I fear that their situation is not always much better today.
Pia, the young 13 year old girl in the center of this novel, experiences unbelievable heartache and pain as a result of the Spanish Flu and her subsequent life in the orphanage. Her story's intersection with Nurse Wallis begins as one of those trainwreck scenes you just can't look away from... and it keeps happening time and time again. I kept wondering how on earth something like this could happen, but the chaos of a health crisis like the Spanish Flu is like nothing we've experienced in our era. Fortunately the redemption at the end of this book through Pia's work with the Hudson family and Finn left me closing the book with a smile on my face.
I've read other books by Ellen Marie Wiseman and think this was her best one yet!
Pia, the young 13 year old girl in the center of this novel, experiences unbelievable heartache and pain as a result of the Spanish Flu and her subsequent life in the orphanage. Her story's intersection with Nurse Wallis begins as one of those trainwreck scenes you just can't look away from... and it keeps happening time and time again. I kept wondering how on earth something like this could happen, but the chaos of a health crisis like the Spanish Flu is like nothing we've experienced in our era. Fortunately the redemption at the end of this book through Pia's work with the Hudson family and Finn left me closing the book with a smile on my face.
I've read other books by Ellen Marie Wiseman and think this was her best one yet!
I don't even know what to say about this book. First, it wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be. Second, it took forever for the backstory to unfold. Third, it really picked up steam and then just ended. Meh...
The Orphan Collector is a heart wrenching story about the Spanish Flu of 1918. Pia and her family are German immigrants living in Philadelphia. The Spanish flu is rapidly spreading quickly and they have to fight hard to survive. Pia had to make a few heartbreaking choices for her family. It was not an easy story to read especially after being in a pandemic for over 9 months. Some of the scenes were filled with gore and was disturbing. This book is not for the faint hearted. I do think this book was well written and did an excellent job putting the reader in a world of fear and the people’s fight to survive.
Thank you to Goodreads giveaways and to Kensington Publishing for giving me a free kindle copy for my honest review.
Thank you to Goodreads giveaways and to Kensington Publishing for giving me a free kindle copy for my honest review.
This was a very well wrote book and I enjoyed it. It was tragic and heartwarming, and even though Pia suffered so much the ending was redeeming and hopeful.
Reading about the suffering of children typically invokes am extremely strong emotional response in me due to being a mother, but I didn't feel an emotional response from this book as it stayed firmly "just a story" and I couldn't immerse myself into the book.
Reading about the suffering of children typically invokes am extremely strong emotional response in me due to being a mother, but I didn't feel an emotional response from this book as it stayed firmly "just a story" and I couldn't immerse myself into the book.
The Orphan Collector is set in a major city (Boston maybe?) during the major outbreak of the Spanish Flu in 1918. The story alternates between main characters Pia and Beatrice (aka Nurse Wallis). Pia is 12 years old and essentially an orphan when the flu claims her mother while her father is fighting overseas. She must make difficult decisions in an attempt to care for her twin baby brothers, Ollie and Max. When she is completely out of food she knows she must leave the babies alone at home but worries they might get into something without her there to protect them. She places them in a little cubby and runs out to find something to eat, but the flu hits her while she is out and she never makes it back to save them. Meanwhile, Beatrice is mourning the loss of her son Wallis and late husband. She sees her neighbour Pia leave her house during the lockdown and is livid. She already hates the German immigrants for stealing her father's job, allowing a child to go out in this dangerous time makes her even more angry at Pia's mother. When she breaks into the apartment and finds Pia's mother deceased and the twins in the cubby, she decides it is best if she takes over their care. Things go from bad to worse when Pia wakes up from her flu in a makeshift hospital and is then brought to an orphanage without her brothers. Beatrice manages to get a nursing uniform and an idea, if the babies helped her get over Wallis, maybe she can help other mom's get over their losses. She quickly takes on a role of Nurse Wallis and begins stealing and selling babies. When she learns about orphan trains, she also begins stealing older orphans with European origins and sending them on the trains (without potential parents arranged) using money from the baby stealing to fund her "good efforts" to rid the city of immigrants.
Beatrice and Pia cross paths several times throughout the story, sometimes without one of them knowing, but the question of Max and Ollie is not answered until the very last few pages, making this a real page-turner and not the least bit predictable. I really enjoyed this book, especially the last 1/3 or so of it. The pandemic experiences were of course relatable, and the awful views towards immigrants and people experiencing poverty were sadly not so different from what we hear today, clearly history repeats itself. I would definitely recommend this book for any histfic lovers who want a good pandemic story, and you know I love a good orphan/adoption/foster book, so this one is definitely one I'd recommend in that category too! I've heard mixed feelings about Wiseman's other books, but I am definitely interested in checking them out.
Beatrice and Pia cross paths several times throughout the story, sometimes without one of them knowing, but the question of Max and Ollie is not answered until the very last few pages, making this a real page-turner and not the least bit predictable. I really enjoyed this book, especially the last 1/3 or so of it. The pandemic experiences were of course relatable, and the awful views towards immigrants and people experiencing poverty were sadly not so different from what we hear today, clearly history repeats itself. I would definitely recommend this book for any histfic lovers who want a good pandemic story, and you know I love a good orphan/adoption/foster book, so this one is definitely one I'd recommend in that category too! I've heard mixed feelings about Wiseman's other books, but I am definitely interested in checking them out.
This booked started off strong but lost its way in the middle. I almost didn’t finish. It had a nice ending but it was so predictable.
Excellent writing and storytelling with characters that drive you just to the right spot. 4.5 stars
I didn't realize how little I actually knew about the Spanish Flu before reading this book. What a absolutely horrible pandemic to have to have suffered through. The Orphan Collector opens at the height of the Spanish Flu and we are introduced to 13 year old, Pia, a German Immigrant living in Philadelphia. What follows is an outstanding story of grit, survival and heartwrenching discoveries. On the one hand, this is a historical fiction novel, but it's also a coming of age story as we follow Pia beyond the ravaging of the Spanish Flu in 1918 as she continues to search for her father and her twin brothers. At the same time, Bernice, a woman posing as a nurse and mourning the loss of her own baby, is on her own personal warpath, one that unfortunately intersects with Pia's journey.
I struggled at times with how over the top some of the characters seemed (especially the villainous ones) so it sometimes felt like I was reading a YA novel, but overall, this was an intense read and had me turning the pages quickly to see how everything would play out. Not as good as Wiseman's The Life She was Given, but I still really enjoyed this one!
I struggled at times with how over the top some of the characters seemed (especially the villainous ones) so it sometimes felt like I was reading a YA novel, but overall, this was an intense read and had me turning the pages quickly to see how everything would play out. Not as good as Wiseman's The Life She was Given, but I still really enjoyed this one!