i guess i arready have read this twice? for YEARS i was afraid to read ROOM by emma donoghue because the whole kernel of the thing, from the outside, just seemed so fucking terrifying. five years after reading FROG MUSIC and THE WONDER i decided to dive into it because ms. emma doesn't play around with unravelled endings. don't you just love a bow on it? i'm gonna reread THE PULL OF THE STARS so many times - a little company store down comforter of a book.

This is a quick, easy read that just keeps inviting you to turn the page. But the content is not easy. It is very graphic with regards to the 1918 flu pandemic and childbirth. It was very serendipitous that Ms Donoghue chose to write this historical fiction on the 100th anniversary of the Spanish flu. I do believe it may have been a little rushed to the ending as it was quickly put to press as the novel coronavirus pandemic immersed itself in our world. A very good read. Always amazed that history tends to repeat itself if one doesn’t learn the lessons. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. It started a little slow, but quickly I was drawn in. So many things going on in just 3 days as we follow Nurse Power in her shifts as a nurse during the 1918 flu.
Very touching story.

Many thanks to NetGalley; Little, Brown and Company; and Emma Donoghue for the opportunity to read and review her latest work - 5 stars for such a well-written novel that couldn't be more relevant in today's COVID-19 landscape. I have been a huge fan of Emma Donoghue's since I read Room - I don't think there's anyone better at putting you in a story, feeling the environment and the characters' pain.

Set in Dublin, Ireland, in 1918, during the Influenza Pandemic that killed an estimated 3-6 percent of the world's population, we are drawn into three days in the life of Nurse Julia Power as she works in the maternity flu ward at the hospital. Two other amazing characters are introduced - Dr Lynn (a real doctor so be sure to read the author's notes at the end) and Bridie Sweeney, a young woman from the local orphanage sent to help. These three women fight to save the lives of the women brought to them as well as the lives of their babies.

There is much to be gained from looking back at our history - this book explores how women and orphans were treated like slaves, how vastly medicine and medical practices have changed, and how government responses to crises may not have changed as much as we would like - but the human factor in this story as well as our own is what rises above all. While some may struggle with the medical procedures and resulting gore in this book, you can't help but feel an incredible pull towards the story of people going through a pandemic while we are living through a new one. And there is hope because of course the world survived this one, so we will survive our current one. "The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end....Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life."

Highly recommended for a book and characters that will continue to haunt me.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue was an excellent story and incredibly well researched. The book only spans three days but is jam-packed with brilliant observations about medicine in 1918. For one second, let’s talk about this amazing cover! Julia, the primary character, has a watch where she carves moons, half-moons etc. based on the health/death of her patients.

The first half of the book takes us moment by moment into the hospital where Julia is a nurse in a maternity ward during a flu pandemic. Not only are the women she cares for about to give birth, but they are sick with a potentially deadly flu. Though the story centers on the patients and Julia, it’s riveting writing that is tense and detailed. As she cares for each patient, they have their own set of circumstances and challenges.

Young Birdie is sent to help, she is neither a nurse nor doctor but is a runner, pitching in where necessary. Julia notices that she is intuitive and gifted when dealing with the patients. Then there is Dr. Kathleen Lynn who is a member of a group wanted by the police for their rebellious political stance.

The pandemic echos what is going on right now with Covid. Although the big difference is how the sickness is treated, Nurse Julia gives her patients hot whiskey and for the women in labor, chloroform!

Check it out:

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 come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

As the first part of the book moves into the second, Julia and Bridie develop a special friendship. The police are looking for Dr. Lynn and want to arrest her. Julia is left alone a lot to take care of the pregnant women and she does her best on very little sleep to care for them.

Though the book is primarily set in one small area of a hospital, its atmospheric; dark and dreary. You can easily imagine yourself there with Julia as she struggles to keep the women alive with limited medical knowledge. The author’s writing is amazing, she is seriously gifted to write a book like this.

"That's what influenza means, she said. Influenza delle stelle - the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates, that people were quite literally star-crossed."

I'd read Room by Donoghue previously and I was so taken with her ability to plop the reader right into the midst of the story. When reading Room, I felt like I was there with Jack, seeing/feeling/reacting to exactly what he saw/felt/reacted to as it happened on the page. I was wondering if Donoghue would be able to transfer this sense of immersion in her other works, and in this department she did not disappoint with The Pull of the Stars.

In this book we follow Nurse Julia Power for three days in 1918 in Dublin, Ireland during the flu pandemic that hit while the country was simultaneously dealing with WWI. Julia works in a small makeshift maternity ward specifically created for preggo ladies who've come down with the flu, and believe it or not things aren't always unicorns and rainbows for Julia and her patients. In addition to Julia, we've got a few other kick-a$$ ladies who make significant appearances in this story - Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rare female doctor (gasp!) who is wanted by the police for her role in a rebel group and Bridie Sweeney, a naive young woman from a local orphanage who volunteers her time at the woefully understaffed hospital due to, you know, staff being out sick with the flu. Other characters include the patients in the ward, Julia's mute brother, some annoying guys who work in the hospital, and some other people who you can learn all about if you decide to pick this book up. Which I suggest you do.

It feels like a premonition that Donoghue started writing this in 2018 - the 100 year anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish flu - and here we are in 2020 in the midst of an eerily similar pandemic. I kept underlining passage after passage that felt like it could have been written today instead of prior to the COVID outbreak, when Donoghue actually penned the words. For example:

"Increase in reports of Influenza. A masterpiece of understatement, as if it were only the reporting that had increased, or perhaps the pandemic was a figment of the collective imagination. I wondered whether it was the newspaper publisher's decision to play down the danger or if he'd received orders from above."

"My voice came out shrill. Would you not put on a mask, even?"

"THE GOVERNMENT HAS THE SITUATION WELL IN HAND AND THE EPIDEMIC IS ACTUALLY IN DECLINE. THERE IS NO REAL RISK EXCEPT TO THE RECKLESS WHO TRY TO FIGHT THE FLU ON THEIR FEET. IF YOU FEEL YOURSELF SUCCUMBING, REPORT YOURSELF AND LIE DOWN FOR A FORTNIGHT. WOULD THEY BE DEAD IF THEY'D STAYED IN BED?"

This book is very well researched and well written. Doctor Kathleen Lynn is a real lady-doctor from back in the day and there's a little blurb about her at the end of the book and everything. Readers who liked Room are going to dig The Pull of the Stars. It's real. It's sad. It's life.

One tiny gripe is the surprise romance that didn't really make any sense to me and seemed to come out of nowhere. I thought the book would have felt more genuine if that was omitted because it seemed to come out of left field, but it really didn't distract from the overarching story too much.

Set in 1918 Dublin during the flu pandemic, a maternity ward nurse struggles with death, fear, love, and survival. Great story line and very fitting for the current pandemic. I found that I wasn’t quite able to connect with the characters enough.
Recommended for those who love historical fiction especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic.

First of all thank you Netgalley and Libro.fm for making giving me a chance to review an early copy of this book.
Pull of the Stars is set in Ireland in 1918, in the middle of a pandemic amidst a world war. The whole book spans just a few days, following our protagonist, Nurse Julia Powers who works in a maternity ward and most of the story takes place within these four walls where she works.
This story immediately took me back to my days as an intern in the labour room. The tension, the frantic rushing, the deep sorrow of losing a life especially a baby as well as the pure joy of delivering a new life was all captured perfectly in the writings of Emma Donoghue.
For a story that span only a few days, the emotional roller coaster this book took me through is suprising. Bridie was one of my favourite characters in the book and she just brought the book to life! The similarities of the situation then and of the situation that’s gripping the world now is uncanny but the fact that the world survived that also brings hope.
The book also delves into the abuse of power across various areas was also illuminating and showed how little the world as a whole has changed even with all the advancements human race has gone through over the years.
All in all I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it!!
Rating: 4 stars

Talk about timely. It's 1918 and Julia is a maternity nurse in Dublin. Because she has already gotten the flu, she is assigned to mothers who have come down with the new and deadly influenza. I love Donoghue's Ireland books (The Wonder was one of my favorites) and this was excellent. The pain felt by Julia as she watched the suffering of her patients was palpable. It took a turn at the end that felt a little forced, but still a truly moving account of tragedy and pandemic.

Donoghue never ceases to disappoint, and The Pull of the Stars is just another example of her amazing writing and story-telling abilities. The book centers on a nurse who spends just a few days in a maternity ward during the earlier part of the century (1900 to be more exact). It's hard to imagine that the book only covers a few days when so much happens - don't worry, that's not a spoiler for anything. There's also influence scares happening, and well, if that ain't pertinent for 2020, then I don't know what is.

Donoghue has this insane ability to make seemingly mundane things into urgency and even to the point of putting one on edge. Several times, I found myself wrapped up in the story's patients and I was desperate to make sure they, and their babies would be okay. For a work of fiction, that's really damn awesome.

Like Room, and Wonder, The Pull of the Stars is beautifully written with dynamic characters. I find myself drawn to her stories more and more, and can't wait to see what the future has for her.

The Pull of the Stars releases 7.21.2020.

5/5 Stars

Author Emma Donoghue decided to revisit the 1918 Flu on its Centennial, and well, you know how that turned out; she had a topical prescience that is mind-boggling. THE PULL OF THE STARS draws readers into the 1918 Flu in Ireland with a fearsome accuracy. We can enter a street scene or a hospital and feel the fear, smell the illness and frankly, want to turn around and run the other way. While the world building and scene setting is amazing and all-encompassing, the story itself is slow and labored, very much like the work of the nurse protagonist. My mind wandered while reading and I put the book down several times, only to start over again at the beginning. I needed more from the plot than Donoghue offered but the book is worth reading. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

I’m a sucker for stories about midwives and women at the beginning of the century - it’s a rabbit hole of research for me. Loved all the historical data and graphic details!!! Relevant, to some extent, life right now - i think this will resonant with a lot of people.

This book takes place in Ireland around 1918 during the time of the Spanish flu - a huge pandemic that killed many following the war. We are introduced to a young nurse, a doctor and their helper who are working in a tiny make shift maternity ward for expecting mothers who have this flu. Over the course of a few days, we get a graphic tale of what happens to the mothers and babies in that small room.

I really wanted to like this one, but it didn't really work for me. While I think the plot was interesting and very informative, I found myself pushing through at times. Considering we are in the middle of a pandemic right now, it was an interesting read. It gave the reader a visual as to how scary it is working during a pandemic when hospitals are under funded and under staffed.

However, this story got quite graphic at times, which is perhaps why I had a hard time getting into it. Many of the medical scenarios that were described were done in very graphic detail which was almost too much for me at times. For example, detailed imagery of a baby being still born. Some people out there may really enjoy this book and I've actually read a majority of positive reviews. So if this book sounds cool to you, then definately check it out.

Emma Donoghue’s new novel, THE PULL OF THE STARS takes place in Dublin, Ireland circa 1918 and was inspired, at least in part, by the life of pioneering doctor Kathleen Lynn.

The drama takes place over a three day period and through the experiences of several pregnant and infected patients and the three women (Bridie Sweeney, Nurse Julia Power and Dr. Kathleen Lynn) who act as their caregivers, readers are given a front row seat to the horrors and impact of the pandemic known as the Spanish Flu. Since most readers are aware that this infamous pandemic killed more people than the World War that had just preceded it we know that things will not bode well for anyone unfortunate enough to be found in the makeshift hospital ward/delivery room.

Many of the medical scenarios depicted are vividly bloody, appalling and definitely not for the fainthearted. Donoghue’s nimble characterizations and her subtle soundings of the moral and ethical issues of the time makes this another unforgettable entry into the list of memorable books she has produced.

I really enjoyed this book and included it in my recent summer book roundup
https://mashable.com/article/summer-book-roundup-what-to-read/

Beautifully written and timely tale of a nurse during a post war pandemic (1919 Ireland). It's fast paced and I read it breathlessly.

The Pull of the Stars, follows a 30yr old nurse Julia Powers during the 1918 flu epidemic. She is a mother/baby nurse for patients with the flu, crammed in what seems to be a room almost the same size as a utility closet. We see her struggle with her patients, desperate to provide care in an overcrowded hospital short-staffed due to illness. She has to learn to make her own decisions and comes to rely on an orphaned girl sent by the nuns to help her. Overall, I found this fast and interesting but (you know me) I wanted a big twist at the end and didn't get it. 3.5 stars

Serious question: were there always this many books about pandemics? Is this like one of those things where you learn about something you'd never heard of before and then, suddenly, it's EVERYWHERE. Because I keep reading these books that were written pre-COVID and pandemics seem to be stalking me.

Anyway, I really liked this understated exploration of healthcare, illness, maternity, and all kinds of power abuses. The Pull of the Stars is set in Ireland in 1918. It's a book that goes a lot deeper than you may first expect. It takes place over only a few days and barely moves outside of the single room in which Nurse Julia Power cares for those who are pregnant and in quarantine. It was a surprisingly emotional journey following Julia through her day as a nurse, trying to keep fevers down and despair at bay. Trying, against horrendous odds, to deliver healthy living babies.

The 1918 influenza was a devastating pandemic. Even as people were killing each other on the battlefields of the First World War, an even more deadly killer was spreading from person to person through love, kindness, touch. Here Donaghue brings a uniquely Irish perspective to the time. With the combination of aversion to contraception, the social pressure to churn out babies (upwards of ten was the norm), sexual abuses in religious institutions and Magdalene laundries, a maternal mortality rate of 15%, AND the pandemic, this was a terrible time and place to be a woman and pregnant.

Nurse Power sees mothers trying and failing to give birth to their twelfth child because their bodies can't take any more. She sees young victims of sexual abuse terrified as they are forced to give birth to the babies of the male relatives who raped them. She sees the "fallen women" of Magdalene laundries forced to give up their babies. She sees abuse victims who are afraid to get better and leave the hospital.

It may seem like the whole story takes place in one small room, but much of the horror that happens there is rooted in far-reaching abuses of power, religious hypocrisy, and social policy. In the early twentieth century, many people really did believe that class was genetic and passed from parent to child, so the doctors in this book dismiss the infants of poor working class people literally from the minute they are born.

I would definitely recommend it if you can stomach the gore and the mentions of abuse/incest (all off-page). I liked that the author wove a lot of historical fact with her fiction, including the character of Kathleen Lynn, who I was unfamiliar with. The only thing I didn't love is how the romantic subplot seemed to come flying in out of nowhere with no romantic chemistry suggested beforehand, but it was such a small part of what's going on in this book that I didn't mind very much.

I really wanted to like this book. I've enjoyed Emma Donoghue's other works, but I just couldn't get into this one. I didn't feel invested in the characters and had to make myself read it.

While I've been familiar with Emme Donoghue's writing, this is the first book I've read of hers. This novel takes place during the flu pandemic of the early twentieth century and is mostly taking place in a maternity ward that strapped for both staff and resources. While most people are avoiding pandemic books like the plague (pardon the pun), I found this one fascinating. I love this time period and the historical details were on point! If you like historical fiction or the TV show The Knick, you simply have to read this marvel of a book!