Perceptive, absorbing and beautifully told, ANOTHER KIND OF LIFE is an unforgettable portrait of a family, and of Ireland, which will stay with the reader long after the last page
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A cleverly constructed tale about two groups of sisters living in Ireland in the late 19th century. Hannah, May and Eleanor live in Dublin with their middle class parents, and the story opens with the three of them going to the Lord Lieutenant's children's party. Hannah is six, May four and Eleanor still a baby at this time. In the north, Maria and Cecilia are also sisters who struggle in the linen mills of Belfast to make a few shillings to help their mother. What happens and how the two sets of lives unfold makes an absorbing tale which is beautifully told. All in all, a novel of real quality.
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Book Description
Hannah, May and Eleanor are sisters whose early life in Dublin with their middle class parents, has prepared them for a comfortable future of marriage, children and servants. Further north, Mary and Cecilia are also sisters, struggling to make a living in the linen mills of Belfast amid rising political tension. The lives of all the sisters are destined to unfold in ways that none of them could have imagined and ANOTHER KIND OF LIFE is the intricately crafted tale of how their lives entwine, against the backdrop of the rapidly changing Ireland of the late 19th century.In her eagerly awaited new novel Catherine Dunne returns to the themes of family ties, love and loyalty which she has delineated so finely in her earlier work but this time she opens out her canvas to tell us a much wider story.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a wonderful story unfolding in Ireland between the late nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century. It is the story of two very different families: that of Hannah, May and Eleanor, sisters born to an ambitious upper-middle class family trying with every means to "better" itself, and that of Mary and Cecilia, sisters too, but very poor and orphaned too early, striving to stay alive. What is common to them all - and unites them in the end - is the historical setting, with the social unrest which, however, they live in quite different ways, and, ultimately, their strong desire for "another kind of life", something different from the frustrating existence of their parents. Both the rich and the poor girls find the lives destiny has prepared for them unbearable, and hope to change them. But only those of them who are determined to fight and work hard to achieve their goals will succeed.
As the story unfolds all the characters' points of view are presented, giving facts a rainbow of different shades, a choir of voices, thoughts and feelings. And as years go by in the novel, you clearly see the little girls and their relationships grow up and evolve, you clearly feel their feelings and understand the reasons behind their choices. The book is very weel written, passionating, almost impossible to put down.
As the story unfolds all the characters' points of view are presented, giving facts a rainbow of different shades, a choir of voices, thoughts and feelings. And as years go by in the novel, you clearly see the little girls and their relationships grow up and evolve, you clearly feel their feelings and understand the reasons behind their choices. The book is very weel written, passionating, almost impossible to put down.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I really enjoyed this book, I wasn't expecting much from it, the blurb on the back made it sound rather bland, I read it nevertheless and I'm glad I did. You get involved with the characters straight from the start which is unusual considering the fact that each chapter is told from a different character's viewpoint. If this technique is done carelessly it can cause the book to lack momentum but here it is done well and the characters provoke the reader's sympathy. My only criticism is that I disliked the ending. I felt it needed more closure. It felt like it was the end of the first novel in a trilogy rather than a novel in its own right. Having charted the characters' lives, it then left them hanging in mid air. What happened to Charles' political notions for example? Did Mary find personal happiness? Did May and Richard rediscover their love? What happened to Mr and Mrs O Connor? All these questions were left unsatisfactorily answered which was disappointing. However, this was the first Catherine Dunne book I have read and it has left me eager to read more.
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