Review: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

title: Year of Wonders [purchase here]

author: Geraldine Brooks

pages: 308

genre: historical fiction

originally published:  2oo1

source:  New York Public Library

Sigh.  


So, if you recall, I wasn't too enthused about People of the Book.  I thought the plot just came together far too easily, which made it hard to stay in the story.


Geraldine Brooks won the Pulitzer for christsake.  There has to be SOMETHING I'm missing.  I'm determined to like her...it's just not going so well so far.

As far as Year of Wonders goes, the plot worked far better.  It's set during an outbreak of the plague in a small village in1600s England. I liked how she started near the chronological end of the action, then looped back and filled us in.  She made some really strong choices in terms of foreshadowing.  For example, you find out in the first few pages of the book that Anna's mistress, the rector's wife, has passed away during the previous year, the subsequent action of the book to follow.  The thing that kept me reading was wanting to know how it happened and when.  But that was pretty much the only thing that kept me reading.


In a novel set during the plague, one would think there'd be soooo much material to draw from that it would be impossible for the story to drag...one would think.  There are only so many times you can be engaged by page after page after page of Anna tending to villagers' bursting plague sores.  There were some engaging events, but they weren't spaced well.  


Rubric Rating: 5.  Wonderfully researched.  Some very compelling moments but weighted down by too much repetition.  So maybe too historically accurate ;)

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

title: People of the Book [purchase here]

author: Geraldine Brooks

pages: 372

genre: literary fiction

originally published: 2008

source:  New York Public Library

Oh, Ms. Brooks.  I had *such* high hopes for this book.  I mean, Pulitzer Prize winning author.  Renown journalist.  I had heard her interviewed on the Diane Rehm show and she spoke with such grace and authority.  All the things that I love love love in an author are all there!  I *really* wanted to enjoy this book...


...but the story was just so easy!  It fit together just too damn well and I had a hard time staying in the story.


The premise of the book is incredibly compelling:  Hanna, who specializes in the preservation and restoration of ancient manuscripts, is commissioned to restore the Sarajevo Haggadah, an intricately illustrated Hebrew text, which Brooks spent time researching for The New Yorker.  The story Brooks creates hinges on discoveries Hanna makes as she examines the haggadah:  a white hair, a wine stain and a fragment of insect wing provide the jump-off points for Brooks to relate how each became a part of the book, thus telling the stories of the "people of the book."  


What I liked:  this book was incredibly well researched.  Brooks' journalistic background infuses each sentence with credibility and weight, which should make it easy for the reader to be drawn completely into the world of the story...


...but, as I said before:  every aspect of plot, every twist and turn is just too perfect.  I could see what was coming next from a mile away, and I, personally, *hate* that in a book!  I want to be challenged when I read.   I want to be surprised.  I want to be completely taken into the world of the story, and it's hard to do that when the plot moves like a kindergarten child's jigsaw puzzle. 


The worst part was, there were moments of description and action that were positively beautiful, incredibly transportive...and then I would be jerked back to reality by easy, obvious plot choices.


I'm not ready to give up on Brooks. I have March sitting on my nightstand, which is the novel she won the Pulitzer for.  I also started Year of Wonders on the train home from my weekend in Baltimore.  


Rubric rating:  5.  It was ok.  It would have been far higher had Brooks made less obvious, easy choices with regard to the plot.  But I'm determined to keep an open mind as I approach her other work.