The Indifferent Stars Above
The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
Ratings30
Average rating4.1
15
The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
Ratings30
Average rating4.1
A chronicle of the mid-nineteenth-century wagon train tragedy draws on the perspectives of one of its survivors, Sarah Graves, recounting how her new husband and she joined the Donner party on their California-bound journey and encountered violent perils, in an account that also offers insight into the scientific reasons that some died while others survived.
Reviews with the most likes.
I knew enough about this harrowing tragedy and it was still not enough to prepare me when the Donner Party eventually becomes stranded. This heartbreaking, riveting and complicated story (due to the idea of Manifest Destiny and it's effect on the indigenous people at the time) was hard to put down. You follow Sarah Fosdick, a new bride, through a journey along 87 other families who try to make their way to California, and the foils of traversing new lands bring to many. The book is supported by letters and accounts of those who also made the journey and the physiological and psychological evidence to support the choices made by so many desperate to survive.
I'm a sucker for some historical fiction and this did not disappoint.
As someone who live in Reno, I've been to Donner Lake, driven over Donner Summit, and been to Donner Memorial State Park. But all I really knew about the Donner Party beforehand was that they'd gotten stuck up in the Sierras and had to turn to cannibalism to survive. This book was informative and very well-written, but also the word “harrowing” in the book's subtitle is there for a reason...Brown really immerses you in the world and experiences of the party and parts of it are incredibly hard to read. It's very good, but it's nightmare fuel.
A great mix of historical accuracy and an imagining of specifics that history can't know for sure about the unutterably tragic story of the Donner Party
I couldn't believe how much I didn't know about the Donner Party. Jesus Christ this shit was HARROWING.
I liked the decision to zoom in on one particular individual of the party (Sarah Graves) while still giving added context. It was overall a pretty good balance between narrative flow and big picture stuff, and for a Westward Expansion book I thought it did an okay job of attempting to depict Native American perspectives though it wasn't the focus.
If you're interested in the Donner Party, would definitely recommend.
