Colm Tóibín’s New York Times bestselling novel—now an acclaimed film starring Saoirse Ronan and Jim Broadbent nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture—is “a moving, deeply satisfying read” (Entertainment Weekly) about a young Irish immigrant in Brooklyn in the early 1950s.“One of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary literature” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Eilis Lacey … (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.
Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.
Author “Colm Tóibín…is his generation’s most gifted writer of love’s complicated, contradictory power” (Los Angeles Times). “Written with mesmerizing power and skill” (The Boston Globe), Brooklyn is a “triumph…One of those magically quiet novels that sneak up on readers and capture their imaginations” (USA TODAY).
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It’s rare that I like a book and its movie counterpart nearly the same, but this is true in the case of Brooklyn, the story of a young Irish woman who travels to America in the 1950s to make a better life for herself. Through Eilis, we learn what it’s like to leave everything you know for a new world, how to navigate your first job in the “big city,” how to balance school, work, self-centered roommates and a nosy landlord, and a new romance — all while longing for home and making a new home.
While Eilis eventually settles in, she still deals with loss and heartache on her way to finding her new identity in as an Irishwoman in Brooklyn. This is a treat of a coming-of-age story, beautifully but subtly written.
Flowing, expressive language. Sad Irish story. But it is the price immigrants paid to come to America – the heartbreaking tear away from home & family to a strange new land. Imagine a young woman alone!
Just sort of rambling that went no where. It was okay.
It was a pleasant and quick read.
I loved this book! It was so hard to put down!! One of the best.
As the child of Irish immigrants it has a wonderful insight into what life was like upon coming to NY. Interesting storyline and characters. Everyone who likes stories based on new experiences would enjoy this book.
An interesting and entertaining tale of an Irish lass and her journey to America.
I really enjoyed this novel. Several years ago I watched the movie. I fell in love with this coming of age story, and I still think of it from time to time. I am glad I picked up the Kindle book. It was equally enjoyable and I highly recommend it.
5/5 stars
HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!
I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did since it is out of my norm for reading genres. I do like historical fiction, but its usually still packed with action, mystery, intrigue. This is not an action-packed book and to be honest not that much exciting really happens, but the main character is so relatable and the author has such a great way with storytelling that I turn the pages fast enough.
The story follows Eillis, an Irish girl who, at the encouragement of her glamorous sister, immigrates to America in the 1950’s to work in a clothing store and go to college to become a bookeeper, which is her dream. While there she stays at a boarding house run by an Irish woman, filled with a few Irish women who also work. The first half of the book is running through her everyday events. She goes to work, she gets set up to go to school and studies law and bookeeping, she goes to the Irish church’s Friday night dances, she has encounters with her fellow boarders, and she thinks to herself a lot about her new life and how homesick she is for Ireland. This is a feeling I can definitely relate to. I always thought the idea of moving somewhere new and starting over was great so I did it often in my 20’s. I’ve lived in Hawaii, California, Florida, Texas, Virginia, Chicago. And each time I was overcome with homesickness for the little town in northwest Indiana where I grew up and spent my whole young adult life plotting my escape from. But then in the second half of the book Eillis meets Tony, a fun, energetic, sweet Italian boy who takes a shining to her. They date for over a year and then she gets terrible news from home and has to go back to Ireland. Tony says they should get married before she goes and they do in a quiet private ceremony at the courthouse basically and she goes. While she’s home in Ireland everything feels familiar and she quickly falls back into her old routine and then Brooklyn starts to feel like a distant dream. This was something I could also relate. The old saying is true unfortunately, “out of sight out of mind”. And that’s just what happened to Eillis while she was away from her new husband in Ireland. Her friends coerce her to go to the beach with them and a boy she particularly didn’t get along with. Turns out he was nervous when they first met years ago and has been thinking about her and he actually really likes her and is sweet. In the movie this character is played by Domhnall Gleeson, a screen sweetheart of mine, and I always kind of wished she’d stayed with him and married him even though it would have been wrong just because I like Gleeson. I won’t spoil the entire book, but it was really good!
Tóibín’s style of writing is simple and easy. He doesn’t bog you down with a lot of detail and he doesn’t waste time on anything more than it requires. He seamlessly skips ahead in Eillis’s story days or weeks or even seasons if it’s clear nothing really happens in those times he hasn’t already described before. There is a sexy scene in there, two actually; one where she and Tony are at the beach in Coney Island and one later at night in her room (you get the picture). So I would maybe take that into consideration for teens, but his style of writing these scenes was interesting to me. It was almost technical or medical in his usage of the proper terms and how he didn’t go too into detail about the romanticism or feelings of the characters while it was going on. He wasn’t flowery in his description as if it were a romance novel. It was merely a narrator describing what was going on and I kind of liked that.
This is one where I saw the movie first, a long time ago when it came out, forgot about the movie and what actually happened in it, and then read the book so it felt both new and familiar. I highly recommend both, though!
He places you in a different time and immerses you deeply into the character of people so much of their time.
Love the way place plays such a pivotal role in this novel.
I’m giving this book a 3.5- 4 rating because I definitely believe it was well written and it managed to keep my attention most of the time. There was however a spot 2/3 of the way through that bored me to tears and I couldn’t understand what it had to do with anything til…bam! You start to see where the writer is going with the story and you’re yelling at Eilis, like what are you doing? Or maybe that was just me. By the time I was done I was thoroughly ticked at the main character as well as how it left me feeling as if it ended without tying the story up in a nice bow for me, even though that is a more realistic end to a story. I honestly don’t know whether I loved or hated this book.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first 2/3 of this book. In the 1950s, a young Irish girl, Eilis Lacey, is sent to America to make her way in the world. Most of the book details her adjustment to her new life, her relationships with her fellow lodgers, and her falling in love. In the last third, a family tragedy calls Eilis back home to Enniscorthy, where she is faced with new challenges and the decision of whether or not to return to Brooklyn. I won’t give away the story (I hate reviews that do that!), so all I will say is that I really started to dislike Eilis at this point, and I found the conclusion abrupt and dissatisfying as she seems to make her decisions for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to know more about how things turn out for her, but Toibin left me hanging.
I love love love this book! It is a cozy, beautiful story. I always find myself wanting to go back and read it again!
Well, to start – I love all things Irish!
This is the story of an young Catholic Irish girl who makes her way to Brooklyn. Eilis is challenged by an inner struggles to push back at feelings of guilt and loyalty to pursure her own happiness. A challenge I imagine many women of her time faced.
Wonderful sense of place and characters. A simple, but wonderfully heart-felt story.