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Sue Parritt

Autore di Sannah and the Pilgrim

10 opere 37 membri 8 recensioni

Sull'Autore

Comprende il nome: Sue Parritt

Serie

Opere di Sue Parritt

Sannah and the Pilgrim (2014) 13 copie
Pia and the Skyman (2016) 7 copie
The Sky Lines Alliance (2016) 3 copie
Feed Thy Enemy (2019) 2 copie
Exposure (2022) 2 copie
Chrysalis (2017) 1 copia
Re-navigation (2019) 1 copia
28 days (2021) 1 copia

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Informazioni generali

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Utenti

Recensioni

Parritt’s writing is rich, her style engaging. The plot has some surprises in store for the reader too, and Emma’s character growth is a plus in my book. Another praise goes to the cast of characters, as they're realistic and a strong support to the story. Well done!

[Keep reading @ Bookshelves & Teacups]
 
Segnalato
TissieL | May 3, 2023 |
I was drawn to this book by the cover, the period in history, and the fact that it is based on a true story.

The story starts in 1974 with a cancelled cruise.

Rob and Ivy Harper were booked to take an Aegean cruise with Rob's air force pal Alf Simpson, and his wife Dawn. To compensate, the travel agent has found space on a coach tour around Italy instead of the cruise. Both couples are persuaded to take the coach trip. Rob's wife has dealt with the arrangements, and not fully apprised her husband, as she knows he will try to avoid going back to Naples where he was stationed during WWII. Even thirty years on, he still suffers from his wartime experiences.

The story is told in two parts - Rob's wartime experiences, and Rob's life in 1974 (the present).

During the war, Rob becomes fond of a widowed cleaner at the hospital, Susanna. Her son is ill and needs antibiotics which are not generally available at that time. Rob buys the medication the boy needs and gives it to Susanna. A platonic relationship begins. On visiting Susanna's home, Susanna's father asks Rob to help feed his starving family. Rob agrees, and with Alf's help, begins to regularly bring some tins of food, purloined from the officers' stores, to the family. He also buys other food they need from the market, where the stallholders openly trade in black market goods.

Rob is eventually posted away, and does not have time to let the family know. He has often wondered whether any of them survived the war.

Now travelling around Italy on the coach trip, Rob decides to try to find out what happened to the family. He cannot remember their address, but thinks it should be possible anyway. His supportive wife, Ivy, accompanies him on his quest to trace the Italian family.

We learn a lot about Rob's wartime experiences, and how that jarred with his gentle nature in this well-told story. The friendships Rob and Alf made along the way, provided them with a brief escape from the horrors of war, and their forays on the officers stores for food for the family made me smile.

Rob is a likeable character and Ivy is a devoted and supportive wife. I liked Alf, who comes across as a bit of a 'Jack the Lad'. He is certainly more clued up than Rob when it comes to relieving the the officers's stores of their contents! I didn't like Dawn. She seems quite disagreeable, especially when Alf cries off the museum trip with a stomach upset. I wondered why he could not tell her the truth.

I loved the addition of the photographs throughout the story. It underlined the fact that this story was based on real people, their very real struggles, and their bonds of friendship.

A very enjoyable story which will appeal to readers with an interest in WWII.
… (altro)
 
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Deborah_J_Miles | Aug 28, 2019 |
Sue Parritt’s Sannah and the Pilgrim is the first title in her climate fiction trilogy. (It is followed by Pia and the Skyman and The Skylines Alliance.)

Australia and Aotearoa (the former New Zealand) have been ravaged by drought. The coastal plains have been inundated by rising sea levels. The ‘Whites’ of Australia, although impoverished by today’s standards, hang on to power through apartheid. They force the ‘Browns’, mostly refugees from drowned Pacific Islands, to labour on the little arable land that’s left.

We see this entirely plausible future from the point of view of a resistance movement, the Women’s Line, as they endure dangers to help the serfs held in the underground prisons to escape over to what we hope will be a better life for them in Aotearoa. (Pia and the Skyman takes up the story from the bases on Aotearoa.)

Sannah, “The Storyteller”, belongs to the Women’s Line. A light skinned stranger calling himself Kaire arrives at her dome and she must consider if he is a spy. The twin mysteries of Kaire’s origins and Sannah’s purpose in “storytelling” drive along the narrative. Kaire’s background when revealed gives us another viewpoint of the conditions on the planet. But we have to wait until Pia and the Skyman to see if his seemingly higher moral ground is based in the end on any better construct of human possibility and endeavour.

As with all resistance movements, nobody quite knows who else is to be fully trusted. Missions are planned and after excruciating buildups of tension go wrong in some way. We have escapes by desert and by sea, rescues, betrayals, brutalities and passions. Yet Parritt’s low key writing makes this stark way of life seem almost normalised, which makes it all the more disturbing; and the wreckage of not just the planet but of humanity springs out at us.
… (altro)
 
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Markodwyer | 5 altre recensioni | Jan 25, 2018 |
Sannah and the Pilgrim is firmly in the emerging category of climate change fiction. Parritt has taken issues which should concern us all, global warming and the plight of refugees, and skilfully woven them into a novel set 400 years into Australia's future.

Her vision of Australia is a disturbing one, yet like all good fiction it makes the reader stop to consider the likelihood of such events and question the current state of government attitudes and policy.

Parritt's dystopian Australia has had an influx of Pacific Island refugees whose countries have been flooded due to global warming. A system of apartheid is firmly in place and the country is divided into zones based upon race. The government has an education system designed to hide the truths of the past and to continue to subjugate non-white races.

This is a tale of individuals fighting against "the system" to bring light to government lies and to free themselves and their people - an age old tale that is never-the-less constantly relevant.

This is not my usual choice of reading and was not quite "my thing"- I tend to read the battles and magic type of fantasy, hence my three star rating. However it is very well written and I am absolutely sure will be loved even more by others.
… (altro)
 
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tracymjoyce | 5 altre recensioni | Nov 16, 2017 |

Statistiche

Opere
10
Utenti
37
Popolarità
#390,572
Voto
3.9
Recensioni
8
ISBN
14
Lingue
2