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This was my book club book for October and I have to say that I wasn't thrilled about it when I saw it. It looked really cutesy and romance like, which isn't my jam at all. But I gave it a go, because I'm always willing to give things a go, and I ended up really liking it. I watched the film too which wasn't as good and which didn't really capture the emotional impact of the book. There is a sequel to this book too, which a few people at my book club had read, and which I would like to read soon.
Eilis is a young woman living in rural Ireland in the early 1950s. She lives with her mum and her sister Rose. Rose works in a nearby office. Eilis is struggling to find a job, though, so Rose sets her up with a priest from New York, Father Flood. He talks about all the amazing opportunities Eilis will have over there, and so it's decided, she'll leave Ireland. Her brothers have already left and are working on building sites in Birmingham. Eilis leaves from Liverpool, on a ship and in a part of the book that is genuinely funny. She arrives in New York and stays in a boarding house run by Mrs Kehoe, who is strict and nosey and imposing. She works in a department story by day and starts to do a course on bookkeeping at night. She is desperate to inprove herself and get a good job in an office.
She is terribly homesick but eventually starts her life in the USA. She meets an Italian American man called Tony, who has grand plans to build houses on Long Island and he wants the two of them to live there together. But then something calls Eilis back to Ireland and she has to leave America and Tony. She promises him she will return, but back in Ireland things are more complicated. She is persuaded to go on dates with a lad called Jim. Eilis feels caught between the two men, and she keeps Tony's letters unread because she's scared of what she might feel.
I don't want to say anything else because of spoilers. I didn't know anything going into the book and I really loved the way it unfolded in front of me. Parts of it were genuinely shocking and it is just a gorgeous book. I gave it four out of five and I will definitely read something else by the same author
