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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
Wow. Insanity in it's finest form. It was hard to not just skip to the end to find out what happened and honestly so much happens in each chapter you don't want to skip ahead.
I very much enjoyed this book; it’s a decent size, but I finished it quickly. It held my attention, included enough suspense that I needed to keep reading. This was a welcomed book after being disappointed in the last couple I read. I liked the main character, the writing was well done, and the story line was good. The only thing that bothers me is the sixth sense of Pia. It seemed out of place among the historical elements. Guess I need to do some googling to see if people really believed it was possible to have this gift.
reading this felt like a chore
the idea was there, but i was hardly invested
the idea was there, but i was hardly invested
3.5 stars. Really liked Pia’s story. Did not care for Bernice’s.
The way the flu ripped through the country in 1918-1919 is just heart wrenching. The struggles that Pia went through as her mom died overnight and her struggles to feed her infant twin brothers with nearly no food is just difficult to through. Then she falls ill for a week and a half before she is about to return to her brothers from attempting to find food for them just to learn they are gone and a new family has moved in. The German hating neighbor, Bernice, luckily saves the twins from starving or so we think. She ends up stealing them and eventually starts finding children around town to either sell to richer families with recently diseased children, placing them on one way ticket trains to get them out of her town, or dumping them in terrible overcrowded orphanages which is where Pia ends up. Pia doesn't know Bernice has her brothers, but knows something is up. Luckily Pia ends up with a wonderful family and that's where she learns Bernice known as Nurse Wallis is actually taking and selling children to grieving families. It takes Pia about 6 years before she discovers the truth about her long lost brothers. The Orphan Collector was a great yet sad book. It shows the insight of living poor and comfortable during a pandemic and how those two life styles can result in very different struggles.
A well-paced, informative and suspenseful story about an immigrant girl, Pia Lange, who survived the Spanish Flu but lost her mother and lost track of her infant twin brothers. I was drawn to the similarities and the differences between that pandemic and the current one and it actually made me feel better about our present situation. If you enjoyed Orphan Train by Christina Baker Klein, you will likely enjoy this novel as well.
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for allowing me to read an advance copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for allowing me to read an advance copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
This was the first book I’ve read in awhile that made me literally shed tears at the end. The Orphan Collector is a story based around the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic in Philadelphia - so reading this amidst COVID-19 was extremely powerful, relating the feelings conveyed in this story to my own. The characters were so lovable and the roots of the story being in love and family were so, so memorable. It started a bit slow (which is why I gave it four stars - though if half stars were a thing it would get 4.5) but I absolutely loved the middle & ending. So thankful I read this!
emotional
sad
medium-paced