btuftin reviewed Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor
Review of 'Star of the Sea' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This book is about a voyage from famine-struck Ireland to America and a about a murderer, a victim, a motive and of stories of the past that explains how these all came to be where they are.
It's also a book about injustices great and small, about transgressions, about complicated people and shades of grey, about simple people and stark white and pitch black. It's a work of fiction pretending to be a much older work of fact. It's so meticulously researched, sprinkled with actual contemporary words of people much like the characters, that it puts you right in that time and makes you think. Makes you feel in your gut what "1 million starved to death and 1 million emigrated" means when you are there, and not reading it in a history book on a full stomach.
And it makes you think about how different a time it was, …
This book is about a voyage from famine-struck Ireland to America and a about a murderer, a victim, a motive and of stories of the past that explains how these all came to be where they are.
It's also a book about injustices great and small, about transgressions, about complicated people and shades of grey, about simple people and stark white and pitch black. It's a work of fiction pretending to be a much older work of fact. It's so meticulously researched, sprinkled with actual contemporary words of people much like the characters, that it puts you right in that time and makes you think. Makes you feel in your gut what "1 million starved to death and 1 million emigrated" means when you are there, and not reading it in a history book on a full stomach.
And it makes you think about how different a time it was, in so many different ways, about how much have changed, and about how much things haven't changed at all.