Powerful

filled star filled star filled star filled star filled star
erae Avatar

By

The parallels between the 1918 Flu Pandemic and what we’re going through now are astounding, and you know this book was written a few years ago before our current pandemic. The story is told in alternating viewpoints from Pia, who loses her entire family and ends up in the foster system. She loses her mother, her best friend, and then her twin brothers in a matter of days. She was lucky to survive the flu, but life wasn’t easy for her.

Then Bernice, who loses her son, and pretends to be a nurse. She sees it as her mission to put children in better homes. She also wants to rid the city of immigrants, and the things she does in the name of herself being right are atrocious. There were so many people like her back then, and people against immigration even now. The levels she stoops to was heartbreaking.

There was an incredible amount of research that went into this book. The writing is excellent; it’s heartbreaking but hopeful. The descriptions of the city, the characters, and the orphanage are vivid. We see Pia rise above what Bernice put her through and what the orphanage did to her. This was such a fantastic read that I’m eager to read Wiseman’s other works. Very well done.