Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have a lot of thoughts on this book but I'll try to be brief. As far as a "historical novel" goes, it was not well researched. There are certainly plenty of tropes (i.e., orphan trains) that are employed with general finesse, as if the author fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and went, "Wow, this is neat!" But as far as writing the story from a historical standpoint that really captures the day-to-day minutiae, it falls apart. In VERY broad brushstrokes, it explores an interesting era, but you could do this yourself by Googling life in Philadelphia in 1918. As far as "bringing to life" the era through characters, the book utterly fails, the characters falling into tiring caricatures and the occasional anachronism jarring the reader out of the story. The character motivations are embarrassingly stereotyped and flat. The main antagonist is broadly xenophobic and unsympathetic, almost to a comic degree. Protagonists have inexplicable modern views on things like race, which are anachronistically baffling. (At one point, a young girl expresses disbelief that "bigots" would want to adopt only a "white" baby. This occurs in a time of segregated treatment, when anyone adopting wouldn't even need to clarify such a desire in the first place because it would be assumed.) Characters with accents have their accents randomly and abruptly fluctuate, giving one whiplash while reading. If Finn Duffy has turned out to be a leprechaun at the end, I would not have even been surprised. This is on the editor more than the author to have made accents consistent, but while reading, it still deeply annoyed me because it brought me out of the story. If "ye" want to write accents phonetically, make sure "you" are consistent. Everyone is constantly grieving and angst-ridden. Dial up that angst to 11. This book wants everyone to suffer as hard as possible, constantly, relentlessly, without subtly. After the 14th time the main character is wracked with sobs, the reader begins to feel numb and uncaring. The misery of this book is reminiscent of a teenager's attempt to write something emotional. It shows instead of tells in the worst possible way, with characters constantly weeping, collapsing, or engaging in grandiose literary displays of their sadness, to a degree that comes across as self-pitying and annoying instead of sympathetic. (A note: if you enjoy Victorian romanticism and the teary-eyed angst that comes with it, you might actually like this book.) The author's personal prejudices feel very much on display, as characters who self-describe as "godly" or "good Christians" are inexplicably sadistic and evil. Sister Ernestine in particular is given no further development than "mean nun." Certain character descriptions (such as the wattle of her neck) are given over and over and over again. Past the words of the book, I could almost feel the author preening over her cleverness; I felt like she re-used phrases she found to be evocative, and in doing so, beat them to death. We get it; the orphanage has a "stench of urine." After reading this phrase multiple times, please, I implore you... find something else to describe. It's a quick read and I read it because Amazon recommended it to me. My mother loves historic novels and the circumstances surrounding the 1918 flu, so I purchased this book to read and then send to her. I am genuinely embarrassed by the book and am sending it to her along with a copy of this review, to apologize for its historical inaccuracies, heavy-handed amateurism, and painfully clichéd characters. This was a book I devoured in a weekend and loved to hate. It wasn't good. I think it could be enjoyed under the right circumstances, though; if you like dramatic soap-opera-y nonsense, if you don't care much for accuracy (or prood-reading), if you want an easy-to-read "beach book" you might like this. If it was given to me for free, I would read it and regift it without a second thought. I only write this review because I'm annoyed I purchased it. It wasn't what I had expected, especially after reading the synopsis and the glowing reviews for it. In summary, I just wish it hadn't been advertised as "historical" fiction, because the 1918 backdrop is nothing more than a backdrop: painted on a flat, two-dimensional surface and contributing little to the actual plot. This was fiction, all right, and that fiction was all too apparent in the underdeveloped characters, unclear motivations, and contrived narrative.