Helpful Score: 5
Awesome book. Brings some light to the mysterious disease of leprosy. Made me want to do more research, and I was never interested in it previously. Also good to read about some Greek customs & the dawning of industrial revolution. Good family saga. Brief but not shortened. Mildly predictable, but only towards the end. Still, fun to read.
Helpful Score: 3
Great read, really made me want to go visit Greece. Informative about the disease of lepresy, and the love stories were wonderful.
Helpful Score: 3
This was an amazing story that I would recommend to anyone to read. Learning about Leprosy and about the life that is still being lived in Greece....the island and the people come to life and you will not believe how you become part of the drama!
Helpful Score: 3
I don't usually read romances and this was a bit of one, in that it dealt so heavily with emotional changes in its characters. But it was still interesting to read about the leper colony. A good beach read.
Helpful Score: 2
This was a very moving and poignant book about family and adversity. I liked interactions of the characters and how Alexis learns about her mother's family and why her mother Sofia never talked about them until now.
Helpful Score: 2
Well written with elements of history and romance. Our book club read this and thoroughly enjoyed our discussion. We all agreed this was a subject about which none of us was familiar.
Helpful Score: 1
I enjoyed this book very much. Interesting story, and the historical fiction taught me a lot. Our book club enjoyed it too!
This book is very moving and compelling. I learned about Greek culture, WWII, lepers, love, family, tragedy, the will to survive...it has everything! How adaptable we humans are! Great book!
This is my favorite book so far this year. It tells the story of Spinalonga, the leper island just off Crete and of the Cretan people who went there to die, tho many were cured in about 1953 and returned to their lives on the mainland. the story follows generations of the same families and is very well written and the characters well developed. Tho it is of course sad, it is also filled with hope. A wonderful read!
If I read fiction, I want it to reflect truth. This book introducted me to Spinalonga, an island just off the coast of Greece, which was a leper colony pre-WWII and during those years. The people suffered intensely, due to the disease, and their being ostracized from society, and especially from family. Yet, with the victory of the human spirit, life had the joy of relationship and useful work. This book zeros in on one particular family and the people their lives intersected with. It's a good read, a best-seller, a book award winner.
Overall a good read. I particularly liked the first half to 2/3 of the book, thought it ran a little long after that. This is the second book I've read about lepers building a community on an island (Molokai was the first) and in both cases was very impressed with how they dealt with the adversities.
This book reminded me a lot of "Moloka'i" by Alan Brennert and in some ways I liked it better! There were more characters and relationships, which led to more diverseness. For those of you who were astounded to read about what transpired to those who had leprosy in Hawaii, this book is just as astonishing though the setting is the Greek Isles.
I definitely recommend this book; I don't think you'll be sorry!
I definitely recommend this book; I don't think you'll be sorry!
This book showed me an aspect of history I had never considered, what happened to people diagnosed with Leprosy before the cure? It shows a family plagued by the disease, the search for a cure, and how these people in the colony attempted to lead normal lives while seperated from their families. The fear surrounding the disease and being taken away from everyone you know and love, and trying to find a new normal in the colony while your family has to figure out how to move on without little hope of ever seeing their loved one again was poignant.
If you like this book, you might like:
Last Voyage of the Valentina
Author: Santa Montefiore
Last Voyage of the Valentina
Author: Santa Montefiore
Enjoyed "The Island" very much. A bit if historical fiction and modern day as a daughter is told the story of her mother's family.
A very interesting historical fiction. Recommending to my book club. Having heard of leprosy in biblical stories i was amazed to learn it was still an illness at the time covered in the book. Well worth reading.
