Astonding, mesmorizing, and full of human pathos. That is how I would describe this tale of the village of Elam in the year 1666--the year the plague came to town. The story is told through the eyes of the serving woman who, along with the rest of the townsfolk, followed the leadership of the Vicar and sequestered herself so that the neighboring towns would not be infected with their 'plague seeds'. Many facets of life during that time, such as the way women were treated, the persecution of those who were different, the rules of their mining community, and so on are woven into the story. Brooks also throws in bucketloads of period terms, using most ina way that the reader will understand what they mean--but as a wordaholic I had to read this with a dictionary (or the internet) handy. So satistfying, and quite enjoyable to discuss with others. The only caveat I have is the ending.
I highly recommend this to anyone, but especially to fans of historical fiction and history in general. And to those who love stories of human drama. ( )

After reading People of the Book earlier this year I wanted to read this novel and I wasn't disappointed. When the Great Plague of 1665 hits a small English mining village they make the decision to isolate themselves rather than spreading the disease. This novel takes the few facts known about a real town that made this choice and gives us a truly wonderful story. The various reactions of the villagers to the deaths of family, friends and neighbours feel real. Definitely my kind of historical fiction. ( )

Beautiful writing style tells the story of a small town who voluntarily decides to quarantine themselves during the plague. So poignant. A story of love, loss, grief, courage, discovery, and of course pain. So amazing. I loved it. ( )

Good Book! A quick read but a really good story. ( )

I'm majoring in history and geography, so this book by Geraldine Brooks appealed to me when my friend Janet pulled it off the shelf. A Year of Wonders is a fictionalized account of a 17th century English village that reacts to the arrival of the Plague by quarantining itself from the rest of the world. The isolation provides a kind of psychological laboratory that examines the ways in which communities experience mass fear, mass hysteria, and the consequences of losing 2/3 of its population in the space of a year.

The story is told from the point of view of Anna, a maid for the local minister and his wife. It is the minister who through the force of his personality convinces the villagers to close the town off from the rest of the world, and who struggles mightily to keep them from succumbing to superstition even as entire families of their neighbors die. Anna is a sympathetic narrator, not immune to the tragedies wrought by the infection. The oddity of a peasant-class woman knowing how to read and write is addressed in the text.

I thought I knew where this book was going, if not the details, but the ending really took me by surprise. The unusual twist requires the reader to re-examine their assumptions and casts familiar characters in an entirely new light. I don't know how realistic it is — not very, I suspect — but it surely made me think.

Another interesting aspect: Brooks' afterword details her research into a real-life village that was the inspiration for her novel. While she used many of the known facts, they are few and far between, which gave Brooks a license to invent. I suspect that if we were able to know the true story it would be fascinating in its own right, but in the absence of that, Brooks has given us a fine substitute. ( )

The stpry of a young woman who loses her family during the plague but finds a reason to continue living. Some mature elements and sexual references. ( )

Anna Frith is a young woman whose village falls to the plague. The suffering and torment brought about by this tragedy only serves to strengthen Anna as she loses love, finds love and is assailed by the shocks of a community tearing itself apart. This is a very well written and satisfying novel. ( )

Brooks puts together a number of random anecdotes from a very bad year in the life of a small English and comes up with a whole, the gist of which is: What do you do when the worst of black magic shows up? There's enough variety to argue that she got it right somewhere. ( )

Year of Wonders was a very good read. I liked the imagery and the characters. The story was based on a true story of a village who quarantined themselves after an outbreak of plague. Simply looking at how such a tragedy would affect a small, tightly knit community both as a group and as individuals will make for a great book group discussion.
I found the ending somewhat disappointing. It wrapped up far too quickly, and rather too neatly as well for my taste. ( )

Great plague novel, hope and affirmation in the midst of drear type of thing ( )

Based on the true story of Eyam, a small English village that isolated itself to stop the spread of bubonic plague, Brooks tells her story through Anna Frith, a young woman who loses her own family to the sickness. An admirer of the local minister, Anna loves and helps his wife, Elinor - and envies her for what she sees as an ideal marriage. As Anna spends more time with the minister and his wife, the scales fall from her eyes, and she realizes that things are not always as they seem. Some of the characters and events are a bit much, but Brooks' writing is lyrical and her character, Anna, shows growth and maturity. ( )

It's a very well-written book, but it broke my heart and I don't like the ending. It's rushed compared to the rest of the book, and it was just dissatisfying for me.

Bought this book while visiting in Portland as lengthy delays at Dallas airport enroute had me through all the books I'd brought along for reading during my travels. It was recommended by an older friend with whom I had lunch while visiting her favorite bookstore afterwards. It stood up to the test -- a very good and compelling book, well-written, captivating story about a horrifying time before much of anything at all was known about disease and its spread. ( )

I can honestly say I've never read a book like it. Despite the unnerving descriptions of the affects of the Plague, I'm glad it wasn't glossed over.

Overall I enjoyed the book. I would have given it five stars, but the ending threw me for a loop. Made me go a bit cross-eyed.

I wouldn't recommend this book for the faint of heart or for the overly sensitive. ( )

I read this as part of my Random Reading Challenge. I have to say that I was not disappointed. Ms. Brooks does a masterful job of presenting what it was like to live in 1660s England both with and without the plague. Her descriptions left me with clear pictures of the hardships endured just to sustain a living as well as combat a mysterious infectious disease in a time where so little was known about infection. I found myself wanting to read more about the plague and England to understand a bit more just what life was like, how people coped, and so forth. Given the furor over the H1N1 virus and the potential catastrophe that the new school year could bring, I felt the timeliness of this book was not to be ignored as well.

Anna is a tremendous heroine, both advanced in knowledge for her time but also in her ideas about life. She does not hesitate to point out her own flaws and continually strives to think best of others, which is always refreshing in this day and age of sarcasm and narcissism. More importantly, she grows from a meek widow to an extremely strong survivor, to the point where she no longer defers to others to make her own decisions. Her growth is a joy to behold in this mostly stark novel.

One weekly meme this week asked us to name our most recent serious book we've read, and I know some people mentioned Year of Wonders as a serious book. Even though I was almost finished with the novel when that question was asked, I personally never considered it in that category, primarily because of the fact that in spite of its subject matter, this book is really about hope: hope that life will get better, that your loved ones will survive the plague, that you will find love and happiness again, that you will live to see the next morning. Throughout the novel, Anna, and consequently the reader, never loses hope. Without hope, this book definitely would be serious and depressing. With hope, it turns into so much more.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. There was enough suspense that kept me turning the pages and kept me intrigued through the end. The ending itself was quite the surprise - one I definitely did not see coming. I would recommend this to others, especially those who enjoy historical fiction and can get over some of the horrors of the plague or just life in the 1600s. ( )

This was a second reading for me. Often when re-reading a book I'll notice more about the detail and less about the story, but that was not the case here. I was just as caught up in Anna's story as I was the first time. Everything about it rings true. Sometimes when reading 14th & 15th century historical fiction the use of common language terms of the time sounds awkward or forced - or like a written attempt at accent, which I never find very successful. But Year of Wonders "sounds" right. I totally believed the way the individual village members reacted to the situation and each one comes across as a well-rounded and believable character.

In spite of the tragic topic of the story this is a beautiful book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The relationships were deeply written and the courage of the characters was believable. An interesting look into what may have been going through the minds of these remarkable people. ( )

Terrific. I couldn't put it down. It's a fictionalized story based on a true experience of a small town in England that was decimated by the plague in 1666. Rather than spread the disease, most of the townspeople decided to stay and quarantine themselves. Riveting and engrossing. I loved the narrator, Anna. I loved how she learned about herbs and natural healing to try and stem the tide of disease. In many ways it was ignorance that killed so many people: they didn't understand the need to wash their hands or bedding and clothes and even burn things that could be contaminated. When they finally do these things, the crisis abates.A wonderful exploration of the time and the people. ( )

I absolutely loved this book. I picked it up in an airport and I timed it so that I wouldn't finish until my plane landed, but the last 20 pages or so were missing. I was dying to read the ending and had to wait for it to come through ILL, because I didn't want to buy it twice. I don't usually read historical fiction, but I can't resist a good pandemic story. ( )

http://thebookwormslibrary.com/?p=398... ( )

An amazing book. Brilliant use of the words/language of the time. A real page turner - very gripping. Want to go and visit the village. ( )

This book was excellent. It reminds me of Down the Common in the sense that it puts you right in the time and place in which it is set. Life was not easy back then, but I think people were somehow happier. They seemed to find happiness easier than we do now. Simple pleasures were reveled in more often than now it seems.

Anna was very brave. A young widow with 2 kids, she was the housemaid to the rector and his wife. She also helped out now and again at the snooty people’s house when they had a big dinner party. Anna was the soul of goodness. Even when people treated her badly and deserved her ire, she loved them and tired to comfort them. I don’t think I could be that good and kind. Her father was a right shit, and in the end when he was nailed up to the entrance of the mine of the man he tried to cheat, she went to him. Of course she was too late and he was dead. Her stepmother blamed her even though she didn’t go to the old man herself either. After that, her stepmother went a little crazy and it wasn’t hard to figure out who was masquerading as the ghost of the “witch” and selling charms to the frightened and superstitious villagers.

The killing of the local healing women was a real tragedy and I could hardly read it I was so angry. The two people who were so vitally necessary to village life were killed very early on in the epidemic. The younger one Anys, screamed at the crowd of lynchers that their wives and daughters had joined her in her dancing frenzies with Satan. And in their blind rage and fear, the men started to turn on these women, too. Luckily, someone called the rector Michael and he set them straight. Telling them they were nothing but murderers and fools. That she screamed her invective because it was the last weapon she had against their unreasoning violence. The older healing woman they drowned (naturally if a woman floats she’s a witch) and despite the fact that she sunk and they berated themselves for killing her when she wasn’t a witch, they had no trouble going after Anys. Truly sick. I can’t even imagine the fear that these women went through. It’s so sad.

So Anna took up the role of healer. She did it slowly and reluctantly though. Anys had admonished her on occasion for not knowing the properties of very basic healing herbs – that she should know these things because she had children and they might need it. Anna and Elinor (the rector’s wife) took over the midwife duties as well. Elinor had never had a child or helped birth an animal, so Anna was the lead on these. She was wonderful and saved a couple of women after the “doctors” gave up (breech or sideways positioning that Anna could change, the “doctors” didn’t dare actually touch the woman you know!).

At the very end, the rich family that fled the village at the beginning of the story, came back and demanded the same level of service and respect that they had before half of the village was killed by the plague. This included Elinor. She didn’t die of plague, no, that she survived believe it or not. But instead, in a cruel twist of fate, she was stabbed in the neck by Anna’s stepmother when Michael had her restrained because she went totally crazy. Elinor died instantly.

After that, Michael went into a huge decline. Anna tried to help him and care for him, but he was reclusive – didn’t eat, seldom slept and never went out. After the village burned most of their possessions, the plague left them. Things got back to normal. Eventually, Anna and Michael started an affair. It was hot and mutual and I was rooting for them to find some love or happiness after their ordeals. But Michael revealed what an asshole he was.

Apparently he married his wife out of a desire to punish her. She had gotten pregnant out of wedlock when she was a young teen. Rather than have the baby, in her fear, anger and desperation, she aborted herself and almost died. She was unable to have any more children. The father of course, had nothing to do with her as soon as he tired of her after a few days. Her family was freaked out and thought she’d never marry. Michael married her to keep her humble and never let her forget her sin. He never had sex with her. Never slept with her and never touched her. She loved him blindly because she was convinced this was love and that he was shielding her from her baser desires. As soon as she died though, he was shagging Anna like there was no tomorrow.

Anna was pretty sickened by this and took off. She ran into the daughter of the snooty family who needed help with her mother who was having a very hard time giving birth. The baby was breech and the mother had lost a lot of blood. Anna help and the baby and the mother survived. When Anna was out of the room and suddenly returned, she caught the daughter trying to drown the baby in a bucket. She saved the child and freaked. The daughter said that the kid was illegitimate and would not be tolerated by her father. They worked it out so that Anna would take the baby and a bunch of money and jewelry as a bribe never to talk and to go far away and never return.

In his final good deed, Michael advised her to leave immediately. That soon the daughter and the father would change their minds and probably kill them both. He gave her his horse and she and the child left. Eventually, she got a passage to India or the Middle East and became an apprentice to a doctor there (she had to become one of his wives to do this, but it was all just for show). She could help the women of the area when they or their husbands refused to have a male doctor treat them. She raised the baby right beside her own new daughter (Michael’s). It was nice to see that she had people to love again. After her boys died of the plague, Anna was haunted and lost. She is a nurturer and needs to have someone to love like she needs to breathe. The end was a little far-fetched, but had a nice romantic aura about it and gave the book a rosy glow at the end. ( )

Plague hits a small village in 1666 England. Well written, and plenty of drama to keep the reader engaged. The only thing I didn't care for was the ending, which is why I rated it 4 stars instead of five. ( )

Respected Australian journalist Geraldine Brooks' first foray into fictional territory is an engrossing look at how the plague ravages an isolated village in 17th century England. She deftly recreates the mood of hysteria and fear of 'otherness' that has imperiled societies throughout the history of civilisation. Year Of Wonders is a fast-paced, satisfying and thoroughly unpredictable read. ( )

Year of Wonders is a novel inspired by the true story of the little town of Eyam in Derbyshire, known as the Plague Village, during the years 1665 - 1666. Although the cause of how the plague showed up in their village is still unknown, the villagers' decision to quarantine themselves in order to stop the spread of the deadly disease has sealed their place in history.

Geraldine Brooks provides us with a fictional account of what life looked like from within the Plague Village and gives us insight into the human nature that accompanies tragedy.

Anna Frith is a widowed housemaid busy raising her two sons and working in the home of the town's priest and his wife, the Montpelliers. When Anna's lodger dies she suspects the plague to be the cause of his awful death and it's not long before her fears are confirmed. The spread is rampant and the fatalities of the villagers grow daily. No one is safe from the disease and every Sunday the church pews get emptier. Anna and Mrs. Montpellier team up to care for those afflicted while Mr. Montpellier works tirelessly bringing comfort to the dying.

What really fascinated me in this novel was the human factor - how the villagers dealt with the constant death of their loved ones and neighbors, the trauma of self-exile and how their faith was tried. They sought a reason why this plague had come upon them, to understand...why was God punishing them or was he testing them?

My favorite part of the novel was the friendship between Anna and Mrs. Montpellier, which has been strengthened by the tragedy is really beautiful to read and you can't help but love both of them and stand in awe of their strength.

The ending is a bit of a rollercoaster with the revealing of secrets and hidden desires realized. Brooks ties the ends up nicely and while I was a little surprised by the ending, it was a pleasant surprise and I felt a great way to say goodbye to Anna, knowing she would have the happy future she so deserved.

This poor book has been sitting on my TBR tower for ages and I could just kick myself for waiting this long to finally read it! Brooks' writing is brilliant, I can't wait to read more from her. Do yourself a favor and read this! You won't be sorry you did =) ( )