Year of Wonders: Like?

[croatbeast]

I'm 200 pages in as I got the book a few days ago, and it's decent... basically people die each day from the plague and it kind of gets a bit repetitive, new names come in the story and a few pages later they're dead... , nevertheless it's not the worst book to read but definitely not my favourite at the moment. Hopefully the ending is good though

[ShortBlackChick]

Hopefully the ending is good though

Prepare to say WTF

[aiming_95]

I'm also 200 pages in, yeh it is getting a bit repetitive.

[nemolala]

Hopefully the ending is good though

Prepare to say WTF

LOL!! I was just going to say, the ending is a HUGE surprise (at least to me anyway) didn't expect it honestly. The tiring thing was the constant deaths, but its the plague, so thats expected. Anyway, i reckon the book kinda grows on you and you begin to appreciate the way it was written and everything else related to it. I really liked the book overall. I'd personally read it again if it wasn't my english novel.

[aiming_95]

I knuckled down and read the last 110 pages last night, and all I can say is... 

[aiming_95]

SPOILER:


So in summary... Elinor gets killed by Aphra (the crazy bitch) which somehow gets Michael Mompellion laid, but then Anna freaks out, takes his horse and gets married to an Arab.

[aiming_95]

Oh yeh and here are a few links I found which contain study guides on the novel:

http://www.bookbrowse.com/reading_guides/detail/index.cfm?book_number=879

http://www.harpercollins.com.au/author/authorExtra.aspx?authorID=50017902&isbn13=9781841154589&displayType=readingGuide

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/year_of_wonders.html

http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/1191-year-of-wonders-brooks

http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-year-of-wonders/

[VivaTequila]

What a lot of people fail to realise is that this book is so deep. It's deep to the point where memorizing the places, people, and events in the text is actually quite a feat. There is simply so much to 'tear' at. It's actually a feat to memorise all the characters names and motives. You need to contextualise the text in it's global setting; Anna transforms from a servant widow into an educated, independent woman and she overcomes all the encounters she faces.

It's subtle things that you need to pick up on, like the fact that Anna fears midwifery because her mother died giving birth. She fears going into mines, because he husband Sam died in a freak mining accident. She fears herblore, because she knows that she'll be thought of as a witch (only a singular sentence gives this fear away in the text). And yet she does ALL of these things for the BETTERMENT of the village. Be aware of these small things - everything that's in the book is there for a reason.

Not to mention the text is structurally rich. I wholeheartedly believe that one of the reasons I managed to scrape a 48 in English this year was because one of the prompts pandered heavily to an understanding of the texts structure. Learn stuff like I said in the original post in this thread -> Year of Wonders Prompts - What did you pick?

I loved Year of Wonders. It blew 'On the Waterfront' and ALL of our C&P texts out of the water.

[Fishyiscool]

kill my life, the year hasn't even started yet and I'VE LOST MY COPY OF YEAR OF WONDERS!
Now I'm buying a second copy of epl hahaha.

[Sickle]

Well done Tisara

I quite liked Year of Wonders minus the epilogue. We discussed it extensively in class and I have come  no closer to appreciating it. Other than that the book was quite good in itself. While I didn't cry over it (which apparently many of its reviewers did, if you check amazon, guardian and the like), I did find myself admiring Brooks' prose and story-line as the book progressed. Kind of.

I hope you all come to find some sort of enjoyment in reading it (English really is just terrible if you can't like anything about it).

Good luck to the class of 2012!

[eeps]

kill my life, the year hasn't even started yet and I'VE LOST MY COPY OF YEAR OF WONDERS!
Now I'm buying a second copy of epl hahaha.

My copy of Year of Wonders will get you a score above 40 for English.  :p Comparatively to my other text, Richard III, Year of Wonders was a great novel to read. It has a lot of prevailing themes and ideas within it and it's a simple read too. The ending sucked for me though. If you end up writing on this text in the exam, you'll find that most essay prompts are similar in what they ask.

[VivaTequila]

LOL just read through this thread and saw kazdawgs post 'Prepare to say WTF' and then the other comments after it

Hilarious, made me chuckle

[T0NY]

I am reading it now.

Somehow the style of writing frustrates me, sometimes it's just too verbose...

[Phy124]

SPOILER:


So in summary... Elinor gets killed by Aphra (the crazy bitch) which somehow gets Michael Mompellion laid, but then Anna freaks out, takes his horse and gets married to an Arab.

Damn sounds kinky, I wish we studied this book, I might have actually been motivated to do a practice essay or two 

[ShortBlackChick]

SPOILER:


So in summary... Elinor gets killed by Aphra (the crazy bitch) which somehow gets Michael Mompellion laid, but then Anna freaks out, takes his horse and gets married to an Arab.

Damn sounds kinky, I wish we studied this book, I might have actually been motivated to do a practice essay or two 

Nah not really. Its just a lot of 'and so we had each other on the floor of the barn, like horses. Our grief fueling our passion, our need to escape from our loss' etc.
Boring. Not graphic at all.