The Pull of the Stars

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Donoghue, Emma, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Donoghue, Emma
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Donoghue, Emma	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Donoghue, Emma	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Donoghue, Emma	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Donoghue, Emma	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Donoghue, Emma	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Donoghue, Emma	4-week checkout	Due 05-19-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Donoghue, Emma	4-week checkout	Due 05-23-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Donoghue, Emma	4-week checkout	Due 05-18-2024

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have fallen sick are quarantined into a separate ward to keep the plague at bay. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders, a woman doctor who is a rumored Rebel, and a teenage girl, Bridie, procured by the nuns from their orphanage as an extra set of hands. At first, this Bridie seems unschooled in life, she makes up a bed with only the rubber mat and savors the weak tea and barely edible porridge from the hospital kitchen. But in the intensity of this ward, over three brutal days, Julia and the women come together in unexpected ways.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Very Emma submitted by kerenemoore on August 27, 2020, 1:48am We're in a room of women, pregnant and birthing during a flu pandemic. The world is shutting down, while a nurse midwife and young volunteer struggle to keep the ailing women and their babies alive. Nothing seems to work and then everything works. But with will, life will be salvaged and the nurse takes her caretaking skills to a new level. You will want the stars to tug differently but you will go where Emma takes you. In our powerlessness, readers will gain the will to figh--both big and small battles.

Riveting submitted by Zekicmom on June 14, 2021, 12:48pm A little hard to read during a pandemic, but also that much more interesting. It took me a little while to really get sucked in, but then it got to a point it where I just didn't want to put it down. Uplifting and heartbreaking all at once, so much story packed into a few days.

Story of women in flu pandemic submitted by flemingj on June 27, 2021, 7:41am What a great story. I loved the strength of these women.

Couldn't do it submitted by smgop on July 17, 2021, 9:18am I eagerly awaited reading this book. Once I started reading, however, I was horrified to the point that I started having nightmares. Perhaps the pandemic had something to do with it. Ultimately, I had to put it down and turn it back in for the next waiting patron.

Always compelling submitted by cdeucher on June 15, 2023, 10:17am Emma Donohogue always makes a seeming claustrophobic setting the space you want to be in. Reading it during the pandemic was an extra does of confinement but proved that we are not the first to have been thru such a moment in time. As one reviewer said, this is indeed a classic tale of hope and survival against all odds. The three days you spend in this Irish maternity ward will change you.

Very interesting submitted by amym on June 18, 2023, 12:40pm I don't think I could have read this during the lockdown. It would have hit too close to home. Much of what would have seemed completely foreign to me pre-pandemic was all too familiar now. I very much liked most of the characters. It was very disturbing learning about the "homes" run by the nuns in Ireland. The book was sad, but it was oddly uplifting.