I picked up the Year of Wonders from my shelf based on some sort of a gut feeling fuelled by a blankness. My mind would not focus in on a book that would resonate with my state of being and be the answer to my want of a book. I bought the book in a quaint second hand bookshop in Cañon City, Colorado called Cheryl’s Book Nook, a shop that I would visit each time I was in town and would leave with a boxful of books. Many as random as this one. I did not know Geraldine Brooks and I have no recollection of my reason behind picking it up other than wanting to support Cheryl in her endeavours.

The book follows a story of a very young woman during the plague outbreak of 1665/6 in her little rural village in England. The village is only referred to as “Plague Village” although the Afterword reveals it to be based on Eyam in Derbyshire and its plague outbreak in the same years. Brooks uses, what I believe to be, contemporary vocabulary and I gave up looking the words up very quickly. I also did not grow fond of Anna and I think this may be due to her narrative voice which felt distant and flat.

Multitude of other villages passes through the pages but they do not succeed to register; they appear, are briefly introduced and a couple of pages later they are dead. There is no depth to them, no feel for the community. I had the impression they all knew each other but did not form bonds. Even Anna’s best friend feels indistinct. The minister and his wife, the ‘other’ central characters are better depicted, nevertheless, even with their respective life stories related they fail to develop a heartbeat.

I debated putting the book aside but it is slight and I felt invested in finishing it so I can take it to a charity shop. I am sure there are plenty of people who would enjoy it but I was not to be one of them. Even after the plague finally disappears from the village and the final tragedy took me where I thought the story was headed my dissatisfaction grew. The last chapter and the Epilogue are packed with action and gallop, twist and turn at the speed of light violently contrasting the slow, meandering and dull pace of the previous 250 pages.

Thanks to the book I now know that there was a Plague Village in 1666 but a glossary of the uncommon words used in the text would have taught me a lot more.