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wordsofclover 's review for:
The Magdalen Girls
by V.S. Alexander
3.5 stars
I received a free digital copy from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Set in Dublin, Ireland in 1962, The Magdalen Girls tells the story of two different girls sent to one of the Magdalen laundries. The girls are thought of as wanton women and their lives are signed away by their families and become prisoners of the Catholic Church. Teagan and Nora are both determined to survive the back-breaking work and the emotional torment reigned down upon them, and look for a chance to escape.
This book is based around a point in Irish history that makes me burn with anger and I definitely felt a lot of emotions while reading this book from anger to despair and now and again, hope. I think the laundry depicted in this book seemed tamer than a lot of the ones that did exist and the girls living there seemed to have a slightly easier time of it than the ones that were practically tortured daily by the nuns. However, it still managed to depict the horrors of becoming a prisoner for simply being a woman (for example, Teagan is sent because a priest had sexual feelings for her, even though she did nothing wrong) and how so many women refused to let the nuns break them down.
I wasn’t completely mad about the plot around the Mother Superior Sister Anne. She is given a back story, and a link to one of the girls, and at times it’s used as an excuse for her bad behaviour and the reader is almost suppose to feel sorry for her. While this might work for Sister Anne, it doesn’t accurately represent every other Mother Superior and priest involved in the laundries, who seemed happy to have a literal God complex and just be terrible, terrible people. I think I just hated Sister Anne’s history because I feel so emotional about the story, I wasn’t going to let her have any excuses for her behaviour. I also could have done without some of the ‘ghost stories’ that were mentioned now and again with Lea’s spirit stories and the visions of the Virgin Mary.
I was more gripped into this book than I thought it would be too and it was a good, if not challenging, read. If people don’t know too much about the Magdalene laundries and want to learn more, this fictionalised version of one of them would be a good place to start!
I received a free digital copy from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Set in Dublin, Ireland in 1962, The Magdalen Girls tells the story of two different girls sent to one of the Magdalen laundries. The girls are thought of as wanton women and their lives are signed away by their families and become prisoners of the Catholic Church. Teagan and Nora are both determined to survive the back-breaking work and the emotional torment reigned down upon them, and look for a chance to escape.
This book is based around a point in Irish history that makes me burn with anger and I definitely felt a lot of emotions while reading this book from anger to despair and now and again, hope. I think the laundry depicted in this book seemed tamer than a lot of the ones that did exist and the girls living there seemed to have a slightly easier time of it than the ones that were practically tortured daily by the nuns. However, it still managed to depict the horrors of becoming a prisoner for simply being a woman (for example, Teagan is sent because a priest had sexual feelings for her, even though she did nothing wrong) and how so many women refused to let the nuns break them down.
I wasn’t completely mad about the plot around the Mother Superior Sister Anne. She is given a back story, and a link to one of the girls, and at times it’s used as an excuse for her bad behaviour and the reader is almost suppose to feel sorry for her. While this might work for Sister Anne, it doesn’t accurately represent every other Mother Superior and priest involved in the laundries, who seemed happy to have a literal God complex and just be terrible, terrible people. I think I just hated Sister Anne’s history because I feel so emotional about the story, I wasn’t going to let her have any excuses for her behaviour. I also could have done without some of the ‘ghost stories’ that were mentioned now and again with Lea’s spirit stories and the visions of the Virgin Mary.
I was more gripped into this book than I thought it would be too and it was a good, if not challenging, read. If people don’t know too much about the Magdalene laundries and want to learn more, this fictionalised version of one of them would be a good place to start!