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A review by yrc
The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede
4.0
I'll start as always with the bottom line- I rarely read and Non-fiction, and this was a really good one!
I came across this book on some list as I wanted to to try out NF that would interest me, and the synopsis sounded pretty good. What I liked most about this audiobook were the characters and events brought to life by the narrator. To get a glimpse of the amazing hospitality the people of Gander and the surrounding area filled me up with warmth and appreciation at a time when global issues are on the news yet again, even if from a different area. I had never heard of this event before, and googled a couple of times to get my bearings. To think people offered total strangers a shower, a bed, food and sight seeing is just dumbfounding, and helped me remember people can also do so much good if they choose to.
It was easy to identify with Hannah who was waiting to hear any news about her fire-fighter son Kevin, with Lisa who had gone through Ovarian cancer and with the kindness all the people offered. Even hearing about the "Screeching" initiation with a rotting Cod fish felt loyal to the narrative and showed a complementing perspective to it. I also was furious when a certain pilot deceived by accident or not his passengers about their new destination.
The one star was taken off because in some of the reviews I read, it appeared that in the haste to get this book published, some easily fixed mistakes were made about locations and names of medecine. While this is could be somewhat understandable in self-published books, I feel that a bigger publisher and the journalist writing this could have done a bit more research to earn the last star with fact-checking.
Overall, this was a great listen. and I highly recommend it!
I came across this book on some list as I wanted to to try out NF that would interest me, and the synopsis sounded pretty good. What I liked most about this audiobook were the characters and events brought to life by the narrator. To get a glimpse of the amazing hospitality the people of Gander and the surrounding area filled me up with warmth and appreciation at a time when global issues are on the news yet again, even if from a different area. I had never heard of this event before, and googled a couple of times to get my bearings. To think people offered total strangers a shower, a bed, food and sight seeing is just dumbfounding, and helped me remember people can also do so much good if they choose to.
It was easy to identify with Hannah who was waiting to hear any news about her fire-fighter son Kevin, with Lisa who had gone through Ovarian cancer and with the kindness all the people offered. Even hearing about the "Screeching" initiation with a rotting Cod fish felt loyal to the narrative and showed a complementing perspective to it. I also was furious when a certain pilot deceived by accident or not his passengers about their new destination.
The one star was taken off because in some of the reviews I read, it appeared that in the haste to get this book published, some easily fixed mistakes were made about locations and names of medecine. While this is could be somewhat understandable in self-published books, I feel that a bigger publisher and the journalist writing this could have done a bit more research to earn the last star with fact-checking.
Overall, this was a great listen. and I highly recommend it!