I have to say that I liked this book. But, I was greatly disappointed in it. I came to the book knowing of the sacrifice of that village and knowing, too, that when people sacrifice in such a way they are abundantly blessed by God. Unfortunately, the latter was completely missing in this book. It is easy to be an onlooker to suffering and assume that you’ve seen the injustice and the loss and the pain and that there is nothing else to see. This is not only completely at odds with everything I believe to be true but also at odds with people I know who have suffered and the tales they tell of the comfort they have received. In the not too far distant history of my own people there is a sad tale of suffering and deaths of the daily “will this never end?” type. However, unlike the survivors of Eyam, we have their own words of the experience and as one survivor said, “The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay.” Surely there were miracles in that village as they sacrificed for the good of their people. Surely God walked with them. Surely there were wonders. Unfortunately there was nothing of this in the book. We are left only with what the author assumes would be left after such a year – a rector who no longer believes and a village that doesn’t either. You can write a lot of things from our atheistic, modern standpoint, but in the matter of a village who sacrificed for their fellow man in the name of a God in whom they all believed, you can not write and get it right. You can not write of such things and leave God out. It leaves out half of the story and the most important half at that. My guess is that those villagers were never the same, but not in the hopeless way the author assumes. My guess is that for those villagers, they never had to look to the skies and wonder anymore if God was there and if He were listening, because my guess is that for them, all doubt had been swept away. They now knew He was there because He had walked with them in their year of wonders. That was the story I wanted to hear.

I loved reading this because

I've known the story since I was very small & been to the place
The protagonist is a poor woman
The most heroic character is a liberated woman
The most courageous characters are all women
The author celebrates the lore and spirituality of cunning women
The author celebrates love, loyalty and friendship between women
The author celebrates communalist values and mutual care
The author takes witch-hunting to task as a masculist power-grab
The author takes Puritanism to task
The author takes sanctimonious men to task
The author takes abusive men to task, with nuance
The author takes the parasitic rich & powerful class to task, mercilessly
The author takes unjust law to task
The author takes the denigration of sex workers to task
The author shows us women taking on injustice and male indifference with above-and-beyond determination
The author shows us women taking sexual initiative
The author shows us fulfilling childless husbandless lives for women.
The author throws open the hardness and darkness of the truth-based story with a beautiful, fanciful redemptive ending full of love and light, simultaneously taking racist white Christian history to task.

Year Of Wonders is the story of a very young, but determined and brave young widowed housemaid, Anna Frith, who  loses her two children to the horrors of the plague, but soldiers on to help the town minister and his wife fight the contagion while quarantined within their village.

This touching and sometimes grotesquely explicit novel set in 1666 England is full of heartbreaking stories depicting unbelievable cruelty, superstitions, profiteering from the dead and the utter despair left in the aftermath of pestilence, but.....there is also kindness and compassion, and one specific moment of magic involving a young child with "rose petals" that will remain with me long after I've gone on to other books!

The epilogue was surprising and certainly not what I expected except for Anna siring the minister's child, but was nonetheless filled with hope and a future for the deserving young woman. Great Read!

I had read a couple of Geraldine Brooks' essays for my Lit Theory class while I was in grad school, and while I was never one of those ultra-feminist types, I liked what she wrote about women as being strong, independent and intelligent creatures without overtly politicizing femininity as a whole. So I looked forward to reading "Year of Wonders", primarily because I loved the topic, I loved the time period, I loved the location and because I thought Brooks would be able to impart something different to the story.

I was not impressed. As a whole, and academically speaking, the novel was flawless - it had strong characters, it was well-written grammatically, it had everything readers would look for in a novel. And I think that was what set me off. It followed all the rules about Writing The Novel: protagonists were good, antagonists were bad. Good people were redeemed at the end and the bad ones were punished. Scared, ignorant people did ghastly things because they didn't know any better: they reacted more than they thought. Women were strong, intelligent and outspoken, men were either enlightened or bought into the patriarchal hegemony, and in the end, the novel showed how the human spirit overcame everything bad that was thrown at it. Brooks did an excellent job with her research, so the locales were vividly described and she clung to historicity almost to a fault.

But in making the "perfect" novel, she lost something. It was not authentic at all. There were anachronisms all over the place. I found it extremely cloying that the language switched back and forth between modern and early modern (17th century) English. I found some of the characters 2-dimensional (good were good, bad were bad, when in reality, a really decent character would have both qualities - these days, everyone knows about the "flawed hero"). I thought that some of her characterizations and descriptions were better suited for a novel set a century later, not in 1666. She had a tendency to rely too much on idiomatic expressions, which made the writing awkward at times and the reading quite tedious. I had a few eye-rolling moments and honestly, I couldn't wait to finish the book - not because I wanted to know what happened, but because I had lost patience with it.

Author Geraldine Brooks wrote this story after learning about how the small English village of Eyam dealt with the Great Plague of 1666. Historical records indicate how the local vicar's maid was extremely helpful during this scourge. This is her fictitious story.

Published in 2010, I was awed by Brooks' writing of what this village did during the Plague (see if you can notice any similarities to our present-day pandemic):
-the village isolated itself from other villages to stop the spread;
-villagers physically distanced (e.g. during church services);
-their search for various remedies and claims of cures;
-superstitions vs. religious beliefs;
-profiteering from the Plague; and,
-thanklessness towards those who tried to help.

I also appreciated:
-the flawed, but likeable characters and the overall plot;
-the audiobook's narrator who is the author herself! Some reviewers found her voice monotonous, but I actually found her oral storytelling to be soothing and easy to follow;
-that although sometimes told crudely, one must remember that the Plague isn't a candy-coated subject; and,
-the epilogue. Again, some reviewers found it odd, but I thought is was the perfect ending because of how it tied in so well with the overall story.

I loved this moving, well-researched story and would highly recommend it to historical fiction fans!

A solid blend of history and fiction (based on true events).

I read this novel over two days and although the village's despair took its toll on me (yes, I cried at some truly heartbreaking passages), it was a tale that gripped me until the end.

Despite the desperate times, the main character, Anna, is transformed from a child bride/widow into a strong woman-- a true survivor!

I did think the ending was fairly abrupt and I could definitely "see some of it coming" (and the epilogue didn't do the story any favors either). Despite the odd ending, I highly recommend this to all historical fiction devotees!

(Reviewed 11/29/10)

4.5 rounded up.

The ending was… interesting. A different outcome probably would have resulted in 5 stars for me.

Otherwise, this was an absolute joy.

Geraldine’s writing is fluent and captivating.

3.25 stars

TMI stands for ‘too much information’. Like when you ask a person how they are doing, and they start describing their bowel habits that is TMI. And you tell them that and hopefully they listen to you.

Ah me, I'm afraid I had to reach for the smelling salts many times during Brooks' depiction of the plague's rampage through a small village in central England in the year 1666. The village and it's heroic decision to isolate itself to prevent the spread of the Black Death to other parts of the country is a reality. The characters spring to full-blown life from the author's imagination: preachers, servant girls, noble people who take on the roles of "heavies", Puritans, Anglicans, Ancients and children, and most vividly drawn, witches performing white and black magic.

Like THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, this novel is painstaking in its detailed research. The Plague comes to the village on a bolt of material a tailor brought from London. The tailor is a lodger with a young widow, the narrator and so, naturally, a survivor of the Year of Wonder. Wonder is a many layered choice for the title: first, it describes the miracle of living through such horrors but I suggest it describes the philosophical question, the "why" about suffering that has asked since myth making began.

It did not take great powers of deduction to guess where the story was going since Anna opens her narrative after the worst has happened, and she is attending to the Preacher, strong, silent and virtuous. However, let me state that this is no Harlequin Romance and surprises and yes, wonders, occur before the final page.

But let me get back to my queasy stomach and attacks of the vapors. Brooks did her homework too well: we read about the boils and the blood and the piteous deaths of children and old folk. It seems the middle aged often had the stamina to live through or past the epidemic. As if this were not enough, several other varieties of deaths come to life with sickening verisimiltude. Just warning, not spoiling, that you keep one of those airplane bags nearby. Childbirths are not omitted nor unique and hideous punishments meted out to those who extorted their fellow man and those innocent women herbalists who were branded as Satinist.

This is not a book for the faint of heart but it is informative and its fictions rest on actual happenings during that Fateful Year.

It's a good 3,75 rating for me

I will say right away that I enjoyed the book very much and I read it in a couple of days.... the story is really dramatic but at the same time well balanced in the plot, the tragic and painful events never take over completely, overshadowing the action of the plot, on the contrary....... there is absolutely too much plot and there, in my opinion, lies the fragility of this book.
There are so many stories and sub-stories that ultimately weigh down the plot line.
Anna's life is unbelievable or at times too much unbelivable, devastated by death, pain and loneliness, she never seems to break down in despair, a condition that seems a little too much for a human being of this world.
I would have liked to know more about the life of the village of Eyam without spending too much time glossing over the constant passages in the characters and their brief, fleeting appearances in the plot. Rector Michael and his wife Eleanor are the people who disturbed me the most. While they tried to find an appropriate solution to the spread of the plague in the village, they also adopt unclear behaviour during the story that is only revealed, not clearly and precisely, at the end.
I would have liked to know more about the witches, the miners and characters such as the Quaker girl...... but their appearance in the plot did not affect the flow of the story very much, making the whole thing absolutely thrown together just to fill in the various events in a superficial way, unfortunately.
But we come to the sore point of the book....... but what about the ending!?
Absurd, pulled out of nowhere and really not very believable....
I closed the book grateful for the wonderful writing of Geraldine Brooks but with a slight bitterness in my mouth for the choice of how to end Anna's story.








Dico subito che il libro mi è piaciuto molto e l' ho letto in un paio di giorni.... la storia è veramente drammatica ma allo stesso tempo ben bilanciata nell trama, i fatti tragicie dolorosi non prendono mai totalmente il sopravvento offuscando l' azione della trama., anzi.......viè assolutamente troppa trama ed è qui , secondo me che giace la fragilità di questo libro.
Vi sono tantissime vicende e sotto storie che alla fine appensantiscono la linea della trama.
La vita di Anna è incredibile o a volte poco credibile, devastata dalla morte , dal dolore e dalla solitudine sembra non spezzarsi mai nella disperazione, una condizione che pare un filino troppo non umana.
Mi sarebbe piaciuto sapere di più sulla vita del villaggio di Eyam senza spendere tropp otempo sorvolando sopra i continui passaggi nei personaggi e nelle loro brevi e fugaci apparizioni nella trama. Il rettore Michael e sua moglie Eleanor sono le persone che più mi hanno inquietato. Se da una parte hanno cercto di trovare una soluzione adeguata al diffondersi della peste nel villaggio, dall' altra addottano comportamenti poco chiari durante la storia che vengono svelati, non in modo chiaro e preciso, unicamente alla fine.
Avrei voluto sapere di più sulle streghe, sui minatori e sui personaggi come la bimba quacchera...... ma la loro comparsa nella trama non ha inciso molto sul fluire della storia, rendendo il tutto assolutamente buttato lì giusto per riempire di purtroppo in modo superficiale i vari avvenimenti.
Ma arriviamo al tasto dolente del libro....... ma che finale è !!??
Assurdo, tirato fuori dal nulla e veramente poco credibile....
Ho chiuso il libro grata per la meravigliosa scrittura di Geraldine Brooks ma con un lieve amaro in bocca per le scelta di come finire la storia di Anna.

As a child of 11, I visited Eyam in Derbyshire for a 3 week long holiday staying in a 15th Century farmhouse. If the house wasn't creepy enough, the history of the 'Plague village' and its brave inhabitants totally fired up my imagination and I haven't forgotten the impression this made on me and my sisters and brother. I remember seeing the well, a crude stone with holes in it which was the furthest point the villagers could go to and where they left notes, money and requests for basic necessities from outsiders who left food and medicines in return.

This book by Geraldine Brooks is a very engrossing read. Told in the first person by Anna Frith, a young shepherdess who has been widowed at the age of 18 and left with two small children to support. Her work leads her to the parsonage where the minister Mompellion (Mompesson in real life) is about to prove his worth when the plague hits the small village with great force and deadly wildfire.

Although fictional, I felt that Brooks really was able to bring across the full horror of the plight in all its gory manifestations and the desperation inflicted on the close community.

The ending was unexpected but despite this I did empathise with Anna and her story has stayed with me since. I would also recommend if you are ever in Derbyshire, paying a visit to this haunting little village where time seems to have stood still (the medieval church and village green complete with stocks still exists). At the end of the story Anna wonders if they will be forgotten in generations to come but a visit to the village now further reinforced by this book, proves this emphatically not to be the case.