Florence (Lefty) MacIntosh's Reviews > Brooklyn

Quick and easy read. A coming of age story about an Irish working-class girl who immigrates all alone to Brooklyn. Simple sums it up. The protagonist, the prose, the setting, the story, right down to the 50’s era, a simpler time. Not to be confused with easy, never that. Thought Colm’s depiction of Eilis Lacey’s feelings of alienation "the rest of her life would be a struggle with the unfamiliar" & battle with depression "all of the colour had been washed out of her world" well done.
As for Eilis…Reserved, painfully passive and singularly focused on doing what’s expected of her. While I admired her and sympathized with her plight, the combination of aloofness & meekness did not make for a happy mix, tough to warm up to.

Not till over halfway in did this story grab me but once it did it held on. With conflict & the complications of life kicking in "The answer was that there was no answer, that nothing she could do would be right. And she saw all three of them as figures whom she could only damage, as innocent people surrounded by light and clarity, and circling around them was herself, dark, uncertain." and Eilis maturing into someone more interesting. I’m glad I saw it through, had fun with her moral struggle and flash of rebellion. As for the book’s conclusion? Poignant and perfect!
So 3 1/2 stars rounded down to 3 - less a reflection of the novel’s merits, more on my inability to empathize with the main character.

Cons: The writing is really simplistic. Not faulting him, an appropriate choice for the voice of an unsophisticated young girl. Maybe he pulled it off to well...