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The Wreckage (2006)

The Wreckage (2006)

Book Info

Rating
3.74 of 5 Votes: 5
Your rating
ISBN
0385660618 (ISBN13: 9780385660617)
Language
English
Publisher
anchor canada

About book The Wreckage (2006)

This was the worst book I've read in a long time.From dust jacket:"At the onset of the Second World War, Wish Furey travels the coast of Newfoundland, screening Hollywood films in churches and fishermen's halls. In a remote Protestant outport the young Catholic begins an intense affair with Sadie Parsons, a recklessly independent sixteen-year-old. Driven from the Cove by the disapproval of locals and the ruthless prejudice of Sadie's mother, Wish enlists in the British army and, after the fall of Saigon, suffers through the brutality and deprivation of a Japanese POW camp. Turning her back on her family and community, Sadie settles into wartime St. John's to wait for him, until word reaches her that Wish is dead.Fifty years later, Sadie returns home for the first time since leaving Newfoundland to marry an American officer who pursued her while he was stationed in St. John's. Travelling with her daughter, she arrives to scatter her husband's ashes and to face the past - a past that will come to meet her in a way she never imagined.Masterfully crafted, THE WRECKAGE is both compulsively readable and a penetrating study of the reach and limits of love, the depths of human hatred, and the ultimate impossibility of knowing another or oneself."I found the writing to be terrible, the pace slow and just didn't hold my attention try as I might. However, there are probably a lot of folks out there who may well enjoy this story, it just wasn't for me. You can't please all of the people, all of the time and I'm one of the first to understand that, so if you feel like giving it a go..go for it!!!

This novel is about the romance between Sadie Parsons (a Protestant) and Wish Furey (a Catholic). The book starts by telling the story of how they fall in love as teenagers and are separated by her family and WWII. Wish leaves Newfoundland to fight with the British troups overseas and Sadie promises to wait for him. In 1945, she receives a letter from someone in the army telling her that Wish died in a Japanese POW camp. She eventually goes on to marry an American soldier and moves to Boston. The book then cuts to 50 years later when Sadie returns to Newfoundland to spread her American husband's ashes. While she is back in Newfoundland, she learns the truth of what really happened to Wish. I won't say whether he lives or dies, but the truth is not as easy to understand as Sadie thought it would be and she has to face it whether she wants to or not.I thought this was a very sad book, especially after reading through to the end. What Sadie finds out about Wish 50 years later is especially heartbreaking. Wish's scenes in the POW camp are brutal and some were very hard to read. However, despite all the sadness and heartbreak, the book was well-written and it was interesting. I give it two thumbs up and if you like Canadian literature, you will be sure to love this book.

Do You like book The Wreckage (2006)?

This book was highly recommended by my Canadian friend...it was a top seller and award winner in Canada. It is an ambitious but great read. I have never been to Newfoundland but I now feel as if I know it and somewhat understand the reticence of the locals, especially the hard working islanders. The story is one of a young girl's burgeoning adulthood and sexuality, while uneducated, she has incredible natural smarts and knows she wants a better life than that of her parents, Enter Wish - what a complex and interesting character. Having read Unbroken, there are some sections of this book that are familiar, with his tenure in the Japanese POW camp. The proximity to Nagasaki makes for an interesting twist aspect of the story and Wish's future. A sad story but an interesting one, where you really want to know what happens to these characters.
—Hope Sherman

so freaking good. michael crummey's brain is the most awesome place and if i could take writing courses from anyone in the world, it would be him! man, oh man! crummy has this genius ability to create characters and scenes that just stun with their vividness. i love the way he uses place as a near-character too. everything i have ever read from him is evocative and gets right under my skin. his prose is fluid, beautiful and haunting. the stories he creates seem so real and knowable. and he has a crazy understanding of people that he brings into his writing - all of the big things and little things, the nuances and secrets, dreams and realities that make people who they are...he will expose them, in the process having you confront more about yourself than usually happens in reading a novel. and maybe more than you will be comfortable with.
—Jennifer D

When I first picked this book up back in April I just couldn't get into it. I had a pile of books to read for uni and I needed something light and something that would pull me right in on the side for reading for pleasure. At the time this didn't satisfy those needs and I forgot about it for two months. I picked it up again a few days ago once the reading for uni was over and once I'd managed to round of the horrific last part to the Divergent series (which is what I'd ended up choosing as my light reading). I was only 40 pages in and was always planning to come back to it. It seems that time and place matters because this time the novel swallowed me whole. It devoured me and I devoured it. This novel shows just how intricate life can be. The elaborate plot woven beautifully over three hundred and something pages. Every thread spun out was followed up. Every question I had was answered. This book was just profoundly well written! It was absolutely beautiful! I did have to get used to the style of writing a little bit, parts of the story seemed to have a gleam of dialect I wasn't familiar with, but that only made the story more realistic. I also enjoyed learning a little bit of Canadian history I wasn't familiar with and it was nice to see some Canadian things I was familiar with too. After a two month break picking up this book was the perfect thing to do, because I enjoyed it wholly and tremendously.
—Alicia

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