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ronanmcd's review against another edition
5.0
As exceptional as Paul Lynch can be.
Poetic brevity, forceful narrative and imagery, accurate observation all combine in a knockout blow.
A girl wanders the corpse of Ireland through the famine years, hearing voices and trying to stay alive.
Poetic brevity, forceful narrative and imagery, accurate observation all combine in a knockout blow.
A girl wanders the corpse of Ireland through the famine years, hearing voices and trying to stay alive.
whatever_andra's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
aineg's review against another edition
2.0
Slow, plodding storyline. The horrors of the famine are better told in many other novels such as Liam O'Flaherty's Famine and more recently by Marita Conlon McKenna in The Hungry Road. The writing style makes for a difficult read and the lack of quotation marks is very annoying.
bgg616's review against another edition
5.0
Paul Lynch is consistent in resisting the label of historical fiction for this novel. He is quite right. It is a novel set during the Irish Famine, but it is a literary novel and about the journey and survival of an adolescent girl. It is beautifully written, and despite the length, it is not a book you will get bogged down in.
The story of Grace who is sent away by her mother and from her home, Black Mountain, in Donegal, is a story of resilience. It is the first autumn of the famine, and her father has gone ( for those who have read [b:Red Sky in Morning|17333295|Red Sky in Morning|Paul Lynch|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1364183119s/17333295.jpg|24942671], Graces's father is the protagonist who goes to Ameica). Her mother cannot manage to feed all of her children so Grace has to leave.
This at times reads like an epic tale (fairy tale perhaps) of a girl who disguises herself as a boy, always just escapes starvation by a hair, survives violence, and just keeps on. She manages to walk from Donegal in the northwest of the country, to Tipperary. But this is not a story of magical realism at all. It is instead a stunning description of the landscape of the famine and an adolescent girl, who again and again escapes death. This novel is never relentless, and it avoids being bleak. Lynch is able to do this by not repeating endless descriptions of the devastation. Instead, he focuses on single characteristics of a scene, such as the description of entering a village where Grace notes the pervasive silence. In another, the eerie scene of a dead family standing in a shop doorway as if they're waiting for it to open. The small group of starving locals who show up for the obligatory preaching by a Protestant evangelical, and the 3 young children in the group appearing to have no clothing except mud.
The setting is sad but it is a story of hope and more. Lynch writes stunning prose, and for that reason alone, you should read this novel
The story of Grace who is sent away by her mother and from her home, Black Mountain, in Donegal, is a story of resilience. It is the first autumn of the famine, and her father has gone ( for those who have read [b:Red Sky in Morning|17333295|Red Sky in Morning|Paul Lynch|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1364183119s/17333295.jpg|24942671], Graces's father is the protagonist who goes to Ameica). Her mother cannot manage to feed all of her children so Grace has to leave.
This at times reads like an epic tale (fairy tale perhaps) of a girl who disguises herself as a boy, always just escapes starvation by a hair, survives violence, and just keeps on. She manages to walk from Donegal in the northwest of the country, to Tipperary. But this is not a story of magical realism at all. It is instead a stunning description of the landscape of the famine and an adolescent girl, who again and again escapes death. This novel is never relentless, and it avoids being bleak. Lynch is able to do this by not repeating endless descriptions of the devastation. Instead, he focuses on single characteristics of a scene, such as the description of entering a village where Grace notes the pervasive silence. In another, the eerie scene of a dead family standing in a shop doorway as if they're waiting for it to open. The small group of starving locals who show up for the obligatory preaching by a Protestant evangelical, and the 3 young children in the group appearing to have no clothing except mud.
The setting is sad but it is a story of hope and more. Lynch writes stunning prose, and for that reason alone, you should read this novel
jenabrownwrites's review against another edition
4.0
Some books you read in great gasping gulps. You devour them. Each word a gluttonous indulgence that you cannot get enough of. Other books demand patience. They require you to slow down. Rather than devouring the words, you sip them, you taste them. They force you to savor each letter. To let them seep into your bones while the sentences dance themselves into your subconscious.
Grace is such a book.
Paul Lynch writes prose reminiscent of poetry. You will feel the words sing to you, forming a beautiful melody that is hypnotic. "Each star blinking out of an illimitable dark and falling in silence for a blazing brief moment." The book is filled with sentences and passages that take your breath away in the beauty of their composition.
Grace is about a young woman, living in Ireland during the Great Famine. For reasons she doesn't quite understand, she is woken on night by her mother to have her hair shorn from her head. She finds herself cast out, being told only, "You are the strong one now."
She doesn't know what that means, or why she must leave. Only that she must. So she does.
Her younger brother Colly follows her, and together they find themselves thrust into an unwanted adventure in an Ireland that knows only hunger and desperation.
Grace must lose herself in order to become the boy she needs to be in order to survive. "It's better to be a butterfly than a worm but what's the difference really when you can't be yourself." Her journey towards self-discovery even more treacherous and dangerous because of the state of men around her.
Every step forward is faced with tragedy. Each piece of good fortune tainted with two more of bad. Grace is continually pummeled with the brunt force of life. She learns that the only thing worse than hunger, is the cold. ""Cold is the truest state of all things and heat is a temporary nature. The cold does not burn itself out in rush like fire but waits with unlimited patience."
This story is a coming of age told in a harsh and unforgiving light. Some journeys to self discovery are  more painful than others, and for Grace, heartache and loss paint her journey.
Lynch doesn't back away from what must have been a brutal time to live. Hunger can drive a man mad. It can take away one's humanity. "Though you can learn to ignore hunger, not to give it a single thought, hunger is always thinking of you."
Grace observes how doors remain closed, heads remain turned. It is better to not see someone struggle. It is better to keep what you have than risk being lost like the rest.
Empty houses and overcrowded graveyards become the landscape of her journey. Beggars and thieves her countrymen.
The beauty of the composition is even more heartbreaking in the tragedy of the story. These are beautiful words describing a horrific time. The harshness of what Lynch describes only soothed by the balm of the words used to describe it.
We can all sympathize with Grace. Finding who we are is never an easy journey. She is forced into the world unprepared and still finds the will to survive. Each sorrow tucked away into a corner of her mind, until she can face them.
There is interesting commentary sprinkled throughout the book on humanity. Should we stop and help our fellow man in hard times, or turn our backs? Or, do we hold onto what we have, waiting for our own opportunities and take what we can, when we can? Death and profit, progress and misfortune are intertwined in this book as in life. Time and again, history has presented us with the chance to show a new face. Time and again we fail.
This book is a saga into the human spirit. How much can a person endure before they are broken? How much can they face before they are beaten down into submission? Survival, we learn, isn't solely about hunger, or cold, or satiating our basic bodily needs. Survival is about salvation, in whatever form we can find.
Grace finds herself surrounded by freedom, and with that freedom she learns the truth of the word. "Freedom is when you are free to disappear off the earth without anybody knowing." To be free is to face nothing and fall into that oblivion. There is freedom in the falling. But there is also an empty loneliness. She is obligated to no one and yet craves nothing more than to belong. There is statement of the human condition in this paradox.
Lynch takes us on a journey of despair and redemption. We struggle. We mourn. We laugh and we cry. We lost our hope and find the beauty in life isn't in the lack of conflict, but despite it. We must see the horror to understand the beauty. We find peace even in the hardest of times.
"This life is light." In this, Lynch succinctly captures beauty in prose. This life is light, if only we know how to look.
Huge thank you to Little, Brown and Company for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book. It comes out July 11, 2017. Link to pre-order below:
Amazon Pre-Order
Grace is such a book.
Paul Lynch writes prose reminiscent of poetry. You will feel the words sing to you, forming a beautiful melody that is hypnotic. "Each star blinking out of an illimitable dark and falling in silence for a blazing brief moment." The book is filled with sentences and passages that take your breath away in the beauty of their composition.
Grace is about a young woman, living in Ireland during the Great Famine. For reasons she doesn't quite understand, she is woken on night by her mother to have her hair shorn from her head. She finds herself cast out, being told only, "You are the strong one now."
She doesn't know what that means, or why she must leave. Only that she must. So she does.
Her younger brother Colly follows her, and together they find themselves thrust into an unwanted adventure in an Ireland that knows only hunger and desperation.
Grace must lose herself in order to become the boy she needs to be in order to survive. "It's better to be a butterfly than a worm but what's the difference really when you can't be yourself." Her journey towards self-discovery even more treacherous and dangerous because of the state of men around her.
Every step forward is faced with tragedy. Each piece of good fortune tainted with two more of bad. Grace is continually pummeled with the brunt force of life. She learns that the only thing worse than hunger, is the cold. ""Cold is the truest state of all things and heat is a temporary nature. The cold does not burn itself out in rush like fire but waits with unlimited patience."
This story is a coming of age told in a harsh and unforgiving light. Some journeys to self discovery are  more painful than others, and for Grace, heartache and loss paint her journey.
Lynch doesn't back away from what must have been a brutal time to live. Hunger can drive a man mad. It can take away one's humanity. "Though you can learn to ignore hunger, not to give it a single thought, hunger is always thinking of you."
Grace observes how doors remain closed, heads remain turned. It is better to not see someone struggle. It is better to keep what you have than risk being lost like the rest.
Empty houses and overcrowded graveyards become the landscape of her journey. Beggars and thieves her countrymen.
The beauty of the composition is even more heartbreaking in the tragedy of the story. These are beautiful words describing a horrific time. The harshness of what Lynch describes only soothed by the balm of the words used to describe it.
We can all sympathize with Grace. Finding who we are is never an easy journey. She is forced into the world unprepared and still finds the will to survive. Each sorrow tucked away into a corner of her mind, until she can face them.
There is interesting commentary sprinkled throughout the book on humanity. Should we stop and help our fellow man in hard times, or turn our backs? Or, do we hold onto what we have, waiting for our own opportunities and take what we can, when we can? Death and profit, progress and misfortune are intertwined in this book as in life. Time and again, history has presented us with the chance to show a new face. Time and again we fail.
This book is a saga into the human spirit. How much can a person endure before they are broken? How much can they face before they are beaten down into submission? Survival, we learn, isn't solely about hunger, or cold, or satiating our basic bodily needs. Survival is about salvation, in whatever form we can find.
Grace finds herself surrounded by freedom, and with that freedom she learns the truth of the word. "Freedom is when you are free to disappear off the earth without anybody knowing." To be free is to face nothing and fall into that oblivion. There is freedom in the falling. But there is also an empty loneliness. She is obligated to no one and yet craves nothing more than to belong. There is statement of the human condition in this paradox.
Lynch takes us on a journey of despair and redemption. We struggle. We mourn. We laugh and we cry. We lost our hope and find the beauty in life isn't in the lack of conflict, but despite it. We must see the horror to understand the beauty. We find peace even in the hardest of times.
"This life is light." In this, Lynch succinctly captures beauty in prose. This life is light, if only we know how to look.
Huge thank you to Little, Brown and Company for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book. It comes out July 11, 2017. Link to pre-order below:
Amazon Pre-Order
deirdremd's review against another edition
4.0
Excellently written story of a young girl traveling Ireland, trying to survive the Famine in 1846. It covers many true aspects of life at that time, some of which is very disturbing.
kcmichelle's review against another edition
3.0
Still thinking about this one. It took a bit to get to the rhythm. 3.5? It was long
beanstew's review against another edition
2.0
dnf :( he writes so beautifully, but i can't finish this novel - too relentlessly depressing for me at this time. the beautiful, literary prose feels disconnected from what the story is about imo.