Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride

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Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown

84 reviews

not_another_ana's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

To appreciate beauty is to experience humility—to recognize that something larger and more powerful than oneself is at work in the environment. And humility, it turns out, is key to recognizing that in order to survive, you must adapt yourself to the environment, that it won’t adapt to your needs.

It's the year 1846 and the pioneer craze is sweeping America. Searching for something better to call their own and convinced that as Americans they were unique and gifted (and perhaps having drank a bit too much of the manifest destiny kool-aid) and thus worthy of this "new" land on the east, thousands of families embarked on the long trip to California. Carrying only what they could fit in their wagons, and putting all their faith in God and their handy trail guides, these families knew that the road ahead was long and perilous, and that certain seemingly small and inconsequential choices could make the difference between life and death. This is what the Donner Party sadly discovered when in early December they were stuck in the Sierra Nevada under freezing conditions, driving them all to make horrible and appalling choices in order to survive.

This is, at its core, a story about greed. Greed is what made Lansford Hastings insist on an impossible shortcut, greed is what got everyone of his associates to agree and participate in the farce, and yes greed is what drove all those people to take such a dangerous trip. It's truly horrifying to see how many times money and material goods were chosen above the lives of people, and the disastrous consequences this had. In the book, Daniel James Brown presents to us a very thoroughly researched account of the Donner Party's beginning and end focusing on Sarah Graves, one of the survivors of the whole ordeal. Besides telling the facts, the author uses Sarah as a device to explore other issues of the time and as a segue way into historical information. It also humanizes the whole party to have a central character (in a way) as the face of the disaster.

The beginning of this book is quite dry, it took me some time to get into it. I understand that there was a need for historical context, and I do appreciate it but perhaps it could have been edited better. The author has this way of writing when describing places or actions that slightly bothered. He would write this long paragraph and he would separate short ideas with periods, I don't know how else to describe it besides choppy. The ending felt anticlimactic, and I do feel that the author skirted around issues like enslavement, the fact that these settlers were basically invading México, and indigenous rights. It did deliver on the sordid history of the incident of 1846, and the harrowing events that the Donner Party had to live through so for that I give it a 4.

Content Warnings

rapunzelholly's review against another edition

4.0

dark informative sad slow-paced

Content Warnings

xenomorphlover's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

An informative yet engaging read about the Donner party: How they got there, what went wrong, and the ultimate harrowing conclusion. It was hard to keep track of all of the names, as there were 87 party members, plus rescuers and members of other wagon trains, but the author does a good job reminding readers who's who, especially when a person hasn't been mentioned in a while.

Content Warnings

furiouskitten's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

I enjoyed it, even though the content itself is very rough, especially once you're about 40% of the way through the book.

The book follows Sarah Graves, eldest daughter of the Graves family, who were Illinois farmers who ended up traveling with the Donner party even though they were not initially part of that group. Sarah ends up as part of the group that makes their way out of the mountains to try and get help.

This seems to be a very well researched narrative of what happened, and certainly very detailed.

Maybe a little too detailed if you're squeamish.

Content warnings: it's about the Donner party, so if you're unfamiliar with that (like one of my Gen Z coworkers) do a quick Wikipedia read to educate yourself before you read this book. It definitely got a little graphic at times.

Content Warnings