The story was fine, but it felt clunky to read. There was a lack of punctuation, giving it the feel of a run on sentence at times. ( )

Medical

The majority of the action in The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue takes place in a maternity care room over a few days at an Irish hospital in 1918 as influenza rages. The heroine is Nurse Julia Power, who must balance the care and the lives of her patients as they fight for themselves and the lives of their babies. The book is heartbreaking, and I'm glad I'm reading it now in 2024 because I don't think I could have when it came out in 2020.

This is good historical fiction. Donoghue did her research. You are taken step by step through Nurse Power's thoughts and actions as she bravely carries on. Through the story, Donoghue explores the ramifications of poverty, disease, war, and institutions in the lives of the patients.

There is even a love story. ( )

This takes place over three days in a maternity unit in a Dublin hospital while the 1918 flu pandemic was raging. Donoghue offers little in the way of storytelling here, but her novel details the condition of hospitals, particularly the maternity unit, and as a sidebar, conditions in homes run by the Catholic Church. It’s all pretty dismal yet it must be remembered that some of the procedures, treatments and church-run homes were in effect until much later than 1918.

The character of the doctor, was based on a real person, Dr. Kathleen Lynn, who started a free clinic.

Donoghue wrote this for 100th anniversary of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and days after it was presented to the publisher another pandemic hit. The title was taken from the medieval Italian belief that illness proved the heavens were governing fate, that people were star-crossed: Influenza Delle stelle - the influence of the stars. ( )

When I first started reading PULL OF THE STARS, I just couldn't get into the writing style. I found the lack of quotation marks to indicate dialogue challenging to follow. I was ready to give up twenty pages into the novel, but I switched to the audiobook for a final attempt, and I'm so glad I did! The narrator did a brilliant job. Within a few minutes, I was fully immersed in the incredible story Donoghue presented.

I adored Julia, Bridie, and Dr. Lynn, and my heart went out to every woman who crossed their path. Reading this in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic made the story even more heartbreaking. I couldn't help but notice the parallels between our own situation and theirs. Though, frankly, we don't have even a fraction of the hardships to deal with that the folks in Dublin in 1918 had to endure.

Touching, heartbreaking, and incredibly immersive, THE PULL OF THE STARS was an excellent read -- especially in audio format. ( )