Year of Wonders: Warning

I finished September's book yesterday and October's book today. As I had mentioned in the previous post, I had borrowed the audio version from the library, and it didn't take too long to finish it while walking the dog, commuting to school, working in the yard, etc. Being responsible for the content of the book, I wanted to finish the book early and be able to give warning if need be, as Paul did for State of Fear. I'm glad I did. I may be ruining the book for some, or perhaps jumping the gun a month early by sharing some of my feelings about the book, but it seems appropriate to me.

Two years ago I read Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card. At the end of the novel I felt cheated, betrayed, and disturbed, especially because I am a parent. This book caused me similar emotional strain, especially because I am human. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, but like the atrocities of the Nephites in chapter 9 of Moroni, certain images from Years of Wonder shook me.

One more point of disclosure. While Geraldine Brooks was for the most part tactful when writing about matters of a sexual nature, two scenes very near the end of the book read similar to what I imagine a romance novel to be. For those of you listening to the audiobook, as I did, if you stop after track 1 of disc 9 and pick up again at 1 min 55 sec into track 5, you will avoid the worst of it while not really losing anything in the story. I used the "Search Inside" feature on Amazon.com to figure out what pages correlate with that section of the audiobook: stop at the end of page 274 and pick up again at 279.

...can't wait for the discussion on this one.