The Four Streets: Volume 1

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The men work on the docks for a pittance and the women stay home, bear children and try to stretch the household budget to fill the bellies of their growing families.

Remember, the journey through a book series is not just about reaching the end but also about the memories created along the way. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Sean and Alice try to set up a new life far away from the families they have deserted in Liverpool. The dreadful secret being kept by one of the girls in this story is that she is being sexually abused by her parish priest. I thought it was the best book I have read this year, whereas the literary critic in the Telegraph thought it was the worst book he had read in ten years. While I know sexual exploitation by one's spiritual leaders did and still does occur, I can read all about in my own local newspaper.

Bernadette didn't notice Jerry as he approached her, so focused was she on holding onto the rail of the ship and on keeping in her stomach the fried eggs and bacon she had enjoyed that morning. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Before I had read very much I knew I would want to finish it, which to me is the acid test of a novel. I was instantly intrigued by the lives of the families on the Four Streets, happiness and hard times.

Jerry and Bernadette are determined to better themselves for the sake of their children - except that the plan goes wrong and Jerry is left alone to bring up their daughter. From that point on, I just skimmed, and much to my disappointment, there were other graphic descriptions of continued abuse. There are some quite dark parts to this story, but they are not sensationalised and help paint a picture of a hard life. But Kitty's life is hanging by a thread, her only hope a dangerous journey through snow to Ballymara and her Irish family.Overall a good read and I'm looking forward to finding out what happens in the lives of all the families in the next books. Every overcrowded home in her four streets would appear to be a persuasive argument in favour of birth control in any form.

He realized as he walked over to her that there was no reason on God's earth why he, a complete and total stranger, should be taking a mug of sweet tea to a woman he had never met in his life before and might never meet again. Nevertheless, the good Catholics do all appear to quietly absorb the reminder that perpetual pregnancy punctuated by squirting a kid onto the kitchen floor every nine months is the healthiest state for the Irish immigrant housewife, as no one in the novel tries their luck with such modern notions afterwards. Nadine Dorries has a way of vividly describing everything so you can picture what everything looks like so easily.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

I don’t like to tell the story of the novel, that spoils it for the reader, I think is is more important to give your opinion on what is within the novel, and what it is you get out of it, or what you have learned from it.

St Mary's church, which stood at the end of Nelson Street, was visited at least once a day by every woman on the four streets. She was distracted by his large black eyes that made her forget her sickness for all of thirty seconds. Yes, provided they had previously enjoyed other historical, family drama poverty stricken tales, family stories etc.