By Lena McMillan, Family Support Development Officer
October’s book choice for our group was ‘The Giver of Stars’ by Jojo Moyes.
This novel, set in Depression-era America, is an historical fiction, which draws inspiration from the Pack Horse Library Initiative: a project launched by President Roosevelt that saw librarians delivering books on horseback, to remote parts of Kentucky and the Appalachian Mountains.
‘The Giver of Stars’ is the story of the five women who take on this remarkable task, and the drama that unfolds, following an incident in the mountains and within the communities they live and serve in.
Alice – a young woman who escapes the life she hates in England by marrying a handsome American and travelling back home with him to her new life, full of hopes of love and happiness, but her American dream is not at all what she thought it would be.
Margery – the leader of the library group: outspoken; a fiercely independent woman at a time when men held all the power and part of a family of outlaws which, despite distancing herself from them, appears to pre-determine her reputation.
Izzy – forced to join the library project by her mother.
Beth – escaping a house full of brothers by joining the library project
Sophia – a black woman who only works in the library at night, hidden from the eyes of the racist members of the community, who believe libraries should be segregated.
Themes of loyalty, love, passion and friendship emerge against a backdrop of poverty, religion, sexuality, inequality, racism and education. There’s loads covered in this one!
Our group rated this book at 7.6 out of 10 with one reader saying she was ‘…pleasantly surprised, wasn’t the sort of book I’d usually go for.’
There was a split between our readers with this one, with some of the group really enjoying it and racing through it while others found it annoying and harder to get through. We talked about how differently we can all read the same book – for example, all but one of us found lots of deep religious themes in the book but one reader said it had no religion in it at all and shared that what annoyed them about the book was what they viewed as modern day values projected onto an earlier period in history.
Everyone agreed on the descriptive prose of the area, leaving our readers immersed in the Kentuckian landscape and we all enjoyed the development of the characters although, without giving any spoilers away, we did discuss some surprises later in the book, in the way characters were portrayed and/or the choices they made towards the end.
Some comments from our readers:
‘I absolutely loved it… really enjoyed it and the characters. It kept me engaged and wasn’t one I’d have picked up… fell in love with the characters.’
‘I found the portrayal of women interesting.’
‘I related to the love of literature in it and liked the quotations used at the start of some of the chapters.’
‘I’m struggling to get through it, the best thing going for it is that it’s not as dark as our last read.’
‘I could hardly put it down once I started reading it.’
‘I really liked the way the author built up suspense before something unpleasant happened, by describing in great detail the scene or action beforehand. I thought it was very effective, as much as a music score can be in a film.’
To find out more about our Book Group, follow our Twitter or Facebook feed, or you can email Lena lena@sfad.org.uk for some more information!