I absolutely adore Charlotte McConaghy’s writing style. It flows like the sea, just like the arctic terns that Franny has devoted the last pieces of her life too. Told through alternating timelines, this story follows a woman who wishes to see the last migration of a bird species before it goes extinct. It’s a klaxon call for our mass extinction today, it’s a siren song for wanderers.

This book was beautifully told, and I have read it a second time. McConaghy has such talent at conveying the subtle nuances of the relationships between her characters, and also letting the ocean and the ship themselves have moments to shine and become characters in their own right in the story. I absolutely felt immersed in the environments that were experienced with the crew and hope this makes the leap from page to screen sometime soon!

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron books for this free arc.

Oh. Shit. This book tore me up! I rarely cry reading books and this one had me out for the count. The ending was so amazing and just brought everything together. I can not wait to see what Charlotte has in store!

This book was rather slow moving for my tastes, but the descriptions were very beautifully written. Franny is a character who is always on the move to something else and while she has a wanderer's spirit, it causes challenges in her life. She is a very interesting character.

This is the perfect mixture of climate change fiction alongside mystery, all while maintaining a quiet, poetic literary feel. I will read absolutely anything Charlotte McConaghy puts out. She is absolutely a top tier author in a new favorite genre.

While this was a well written story, it just wasn't something that I felt that I could fully immerse myself in.

When I think of women'sfiction, I think of books just like this one, that gives all the feels. This is a perfect book to snuggle up with on any day.

The only negative thing I have to say about my experience of reading this book is that I'm furious with myself for waiting so long to read it.

This book left me absolutely breathless. I cried, and I cried some more, and I felt scared and hopeful and joyful and all of those feelings over and over again. What a beautiful, necessary book.

I only read part of this book, because I felt the pace was too slow to hold my interest. The story tells of Franny’s discovering who she and makes for a wonderful tale of self discovery that I was interested in reading, but I just needed the story to move along faster in order to keep enjoying it.

Already an international bestseller, Charlotte McConaghy’s debut, MIGRATIONS, is a tender, sweeping novel about an impossible journey of survival, redemption and hope.

Born with the family curse of wanderlust, Franny Stone has always loved deeply and with devotion, yet inevitably she finds herself following her feet to wherever they might lead her: a historic library in Ireland, a wooden house by the sea where her mother once lived, an animal sanctuary in Scotland. When she meets Niall Lynch, a university lecturer as devoted to birds as she is, she finally finds somewhere to stay, to build a proverbial nest and to nurture the love she has been seeking since the day her mother walked out on her.

Together Franny and Niall study the effects of climate change around them. In a near future or reimagined present, they watch as entire swaths of species go extinct --- first the animals pushed out by humans’ incessant building and deforesting (bears, wolves, etc.), and later the ones tortured by our greed: oceans devoid of fish that have been pulled ashore to overfeed our growing populations; birds that can no longer survive their long migration south without fish and seed to eat along the way.

When we meet Franny, she is on a quest to follow the Arctic tern, a species of bird known for making the longest migration of all, from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle --- a roundtrip journey of about 18,600 miles. Although nearly every other variety of bird and other animal has gone extinct, Franny believes, along with her husband, that the tern has been able to withstand climate change because of years of miraculous survival on one of the most treacherous trips in the world. Though Niall is content to stay home to study and lecture, Franny knows that she alone must migrate with the terns and figure out once and for all how many of them, if any, have survived humanity’s attack on the planet. But first she’ll need a ship.

Franny already has been denied by seven other captains --- superstitious men who don’t want untrained strangers aboard, especially with their way of life under attack from activists and policymakers. But when she hears about the Sanghani (Inuit for “raven”), something tells her that she has found her vessel. After a disastrous and hilarious meet-cute of sorts, Franny finds herself aboard the commercial ship captained by Ennis Malone, an Alaskan manning a crew of six men and one woman from drastically different backgrounds. Though they are quick to judge and even ridicule Franny, she is a hard worker who is not afraid to get dirty, bleed and fall into bed halfway dead, and she soon earns their respect as part of the crew.

However, amid their banter, poker nights and ship maintenance, a current of tension runs between them. Fishermen have come under scrutiny in the dying world for their continuous emptying of the sea and carbon footprints. The crew knows that Franny, a bird migration obsessive, must agree with the masses that they are nothing better than climate change deniers, murderers of entire species. And yet, as Franny starts to become a seawoman herself, she finds that there is an undeniable beauty in what the crew has found themselves called to do. No one but a fool doesn’t fear the sea, and in carving out entire livelihoods for themselves on nature’s cruelest and most unpredictable surfaces, these fishermen and women have developed a sort of mutual respect and adulation that even some of Franny’s activist friends have never quite found.

Tracking three Arctic terns that Franny tagged with GPS devices, the Sanghani makes its way south, battling stormy seas, changing laws and their own inner demons. But as their lives are braided together and their desires for the journey to end --- either in flames or in glory --- grow, it is revealed that Franny has not been entirely truthful with them. Her demons have the power to end them all, and until she can confront her past, present and future, she has put the ship at huge, unavoidable risk. In alternating chapters, we see the tragic, life-changing moments that brought Franny to Ennis, the Sanghani and the rest of the crew, and how they unfold on her migration south. Written with equal parts devastation and hope, this book is a searing, crystalline tribute to the natural world and all of its beauties.

McConaghy’s prose is gorgeous but can feel inaccessible early on, especially as she is introducing readers to Franny. While Franny has become one of my favorite characters thus far, she is entirely unique, which while refreshing can also make her difficult to pin down. She is clever but naive at times; deeply devoted but prone to fickleness; full to the brim with hope but weighed down by unexamined tragedies and darkness. Once you get the heart of Franny, though, the novel unfolds quickly and becomes utterly unputdownable.

Her fierceness is matched and challenged by that of the Sanghani’s crew, as well as the ferociousness of the sea around them. It makes for some nearly unbearable tension, but also some powerful, poignant scenes of universalism and emotional wisdom. It is difficult and often painful to read about a world without animals --- no birdsong in the national forests, no deer at the edge of your yard, no fish in the ocean or on your plate --- yet by channeling Franny and the indomitable crew of the Sanghani, McConaghy infuses the book with breathtaking hope.

Heartbreaking, moving and invigorating, MIGRATIONS is a love letter to our world and an ode to our times. It will force you to confront the wastefulness of the world around you while celebrating its remaining beauty and the will of its animals to adapt, overcome and survive.

If I’m being honest, when I first started reading Migrations by Australian author Charlotte McConaghy, I didn’t think it would be a book that would hold my interest. Was I ever wrong! This book was beautiful and in a sense I thought poetic. It’s a love story like no other. It’s about humans and animals and their will to survive. It’s redemption and forgiveness. It was simply beautiful and I found myself in tears. This is a book I recommend to all readers who really want to feel while their reading. It’s a story that I’ll never forget as it really touched my soul and I’d love to read other work by this author. This was an egalley that I won from Samantha Zukergood at Flatiron Books. I’d like to thank her, Flatiron Books and NetGalley for the arc. It was a story that I enjoyed tremendously and I believe it deserves a 5 star rating.

This book hit me hard it touched me and made me cry at times, as to how sad this book is about a woman and how she is filled with grief. It was a lovely story that isn't like most books, I really enjoyed the authors writing and how she made this book so elegant and quiet..

I don't want to disclose anymore as I have so much to say..

As a naturalist at heart, this book is beautiful and poignant. Of course, I learned more than I could have imagined and it changed my perspective on many things. It was masterfully written and I enjoyed it very much.

Ya'll, I could not get through this book. I tried so many times. I even tried the audio version and I just couldn't finish it. This rarely happens to me since I'll read just about anything and maybe at some time in the future I could get into it.... wait, no, I'm not going to try again. I know a lot of people loved this book and I wanted too because of the gorgeous cover. Publishers, please don't hate me.

Migrations is definitely your standard literary fare full of fanciful descriptions and an oftentimes hard-to-follow storyline that likes to bounce between the present day and flashbacks. I don’t think I was in the right mood to try this one (or if I honestly even possess a mood that is “right” for reading literary fiction.)

A wonderful and provocative read! This book was absolutely wonderful - it was deep, dark, powerful and pulled at the depths of human emotion, desire, will and truth. Beautifully written, I loved how the The characters and the different timelines. This is a just read. I loved it!

This is easily joining the ranks of my all-time favorite reads, McConaghy is such a talent and I'm now on the edge of my seat waiting for ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES. This book hurt in the best of ways, brimming with emotional impact without ever being heavy-handed or melodramatic or manipulative. Beautiful prose, thoughtful thematic layering, skillfully-handled structure - and I always love a cold, remote setting.

Beautifully written and heartfelt. I was sucked in immediately trying to work out the pain that the main character was going through and where it would take her.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

The animals are dying. Soon we will be alone here.
These are the first words in the novel but never had I read truer words.

Migrations
Charlotte McConaghy

Charlotte McConaghy writes a very special story about young Franny Stone who talks herself into a boat to Greenland to track the last Arctic terns as they make their globe spanning migration from the Arctic to the Antarctic. A beautiful story about out connection with nature and the environment and the reality of a world that is in serious danger if we all do not protect the world we live in. The writing of Franny's character is absolutely amazing and one character that will be a favorite of mine for many years to come. While reading this book, I was completely transported to parts of this world I will probably never get to see in my lifetime.

I enjoyed the writing and the parallels between what is happening in nature and the inner turmoil of Franny's life, her relationships. A story full of grief, loneliness, and eventually a moving journey for all.

I really enjoyed this one a lot.