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A review by pixiebix
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
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).