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Rowan the Strange
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Hearn has the skill of a conjuror (The Sunday Times )
Hearn writes with great brio and style (Adele Geras, The Guardian )
An amazing piece of fiction that deserves to be devoured. (South China Morning Post )
Hearn writes with great brio and style (Adele Geras, The Guardian )
An amazing piece of fiction that deserves to be devoured. (South China Morning Post )
Book Description
A powerful and compelling story of life in a mental asylum at the start of the Second World War.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerfully compelling tale,
By
This review is from: Rowan the Strange (Hardcover)
Julie Hearn has written a powerfully compelling story with her latest offering of Rowan the Strange. She has given the reader an insight into mental illness with her compassionate, intelligent tale of a young schizophrenic boy and the experimental treatment he receives at a psychiatric hospital for the insane. Her writing is so eloquent that when she describes Rowan's first treatment I found myself gasping in horror and had to pause to recollect my thoughts. She skilfully draws parallels between the outside world and the war with the chaos that is occurring in the minds of the patients in hospital. Her characters come to life on the pages and I came to care about every one of them. It was pure genius on her part to have cast the main doctor as a German - Doctor von Metzer - and to use him to express the shock and outrage that Germans felt over the euthanasia of the mentally ill that occurred in their country. The book is deep, dark and at times harrowing, but always told in a compassionate and perceptive style.This is the third in a series and is a sequel to Hazel and Ivy but works very well as a stand alone novel. Indeed, I haven't read the first two books and didn't feel this detracted in my enjoyment of it at all. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in mental health, WW11 and historical fiction.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another star turn from Julie,
By Cloudfish (Berkshire, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Rowan the Strange (Hardcover)
I've been a huge fan of Julie Hearn ever since picking up Ivy quite by chance (I liked the cover) in my local Waterstones. She has a magical way with words and can weave pictures in your mind like nobody else. I'd been waiting for this book for aaaaages, and was so glad when it was finally published. I read it in two days- nearly missing my stop on a train thanks to its engrossing powers- and loved it. The psychiatric hospital setting is described wonderfully, right down to the last detail, and I found myself gasping out loud when Rowan's first treatment was described. Rowan himself is not too strange to be alientating, and I simply adored all the supporting characters- the German doctor (a clever idea, since it is set during WW2), the quiet and earnest John Wallace and above all the eccentric Dorothea. I also love the generation jump- Rowan is the son of Hazel, star of Julie's previous novel, and Hazel in turn is the daughter of Ivy, the protagonist of the novel that originally entranced me. I love following her extended family, and will continue to read as long as Ms Hearn is continuing to write!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should do for schizophrenia what the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time did for Autism.,
By ELH Browning "Esther-Lou" (Kingston Bagpuize, Oxon) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Rowan the Strange (Hardcover)
This powerful story of a teenager with schizophrenia at the outset of the Second First War and "Rowan The Strange" is a rich yet raw tale, shocking yet gripping that'll fill you with both sadness and hope, and encourage an understanding of mental illness.Rowan has uncontrollable and unexplainable rages that exhaust and frighten his caring family and they don't know how to cope or what to do for the best. While his sister is evacuated in the normal way, Rowan is sent to a lunatic asylum and is accepted as a test-case for a new type of treatment - electroconvulsive therapy. The path he charts, from his arrival at the hospital through to the end of the book contrasts considerably with the experience of his friend on the ward, a feisty girl Dorothea who sees saints on people's shoulders. Her own "daemon" is aptly Joan of Arc, and although curing her of these apparitions would be a medical success, what would be left of Dorothea without them? Throughout, this heartfelt story is sensitively handled with a great eye for detail. Hearn also cleverly interweaves additional themes into this riveting read: the exclusion felt by the patients from mainstream society, the undercurrent of racism for the doctor who is German, and the doctor's own feelings about what is going on in the hospital and in his own country. Despite the sad subject matter, and this book would be a great Xmas present, especially for teenage boys - a pantomime is a fairly key part of the plot and from his admittance to hospital Rowan's family wonder whether he might be home for Christmas, some moths later. It certainly makes the "normal" reader appreciate their sanity and their acceptance in a family and community. Thank you, Julie Hearn. I'm very glad I've read this compelling and thought-provoking book and Rowan will stay with me for a considerable time to come.
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