Migrations

5 ⭐️ // Sad. Hopeful. Relatable. Beautiful. I loved this story. Definitely made me feel things. Now I can't wait to learn more about Arctic Terns - they are amazing and resilient creatures.

“It's not life I'm tired of, with its astonishing ocean currents and layers of ice and all the delicate feathers that make up a wing. It's myself”

I read all of part three through teary eyes so I can't give this less than 5 stars. Fantastic book, can't ever read it again.

“I'm always crying.” I say, dashing the tears from my face.
“Hally's always crying too. Mom says it's because she had a past life and it keeps sneaking back in.”

This was really great and my heart hurt the entire time I read it. One less star because I disliked the ending

I lie in the sea and feel more lost than ever, because I'm not meant to be homesick, I'm not meant to long for the things I have always been so desperate to leave.It isn't fair to be the kind of creature who is able to love but unable to stay.

I am pretty sure this book will haunt me for the rest of my life. It was so heartbreaking, but at the Same time very positive and beautiful.
I wanted to read this book for a very long time and I am so happy I did it.
I cried at the end for an unexpected reason, it made me think about my perception of things.

this better be as good as everyone has said it is

Loved the shorter, alternating chapters going back in time to give us context and clues, and I felt much more invested getting to part 2. However, most of the characters' actions and motivations made no sense to me, even if we assume a suspended dystopian future and Franny's generational trauma.

I guess in the end it felt too much nature, and falling into tendencies or expectations without processing them until it was too late.

Haunting and beautiful, set in a world that feels like it could easily be ours 50 years down the road. I enjoyed the imagery, the gradual reveals, and the unreliable narrator, and though the ending was absolutely beautiful.

“It isn't fair to be the kind of creature who is able to love but unable to stay.”

Migrations follows Franny Stone's journey to follow the last migration of the Arctic terns. It's a story set in the near future, on an earth that's been ravaged by the warming climate and where most species of animals have gone extinct. It's a heart wrenching story centered on a character who is so damaged and has lost so much.

I found the story to be predictable to a certain extent, but Charlotte McConaghy's story-telling is so beautiful that I found myself hooked anyways.

“It isn't fair to be the kind of creature who is able to love but unable to stay.”

Migrations follows Franny Stone's journey to follow the last migration of the Arctic terns. It's a story set in the near future, on an earth that's been ravaged by the warming climate and where most species of animals have gone extinct. It's a heart wrenching story centered on a character who is so damaged and has lost so much.

I found the story to be predictable to a certain extent, but Charlotte McConaghy's story-telling is so beautiful that I found myself hooked anyways.

The improbable events turn foul whenever it comes to contrived harm, especially when McConaghy unceremoniously kills off the queer woman of colour. It's also yet another work that normalises relationships between students and professors.

This book is a little miracle. Filled with so many exciting passages, tempered by a steady rhythm of past and present story lines that weave like the Arctic terns being sought in McConaghy's love letter to animals, this slim novel explodes with vibrancy despite a melancholic tone. Grieving all the creatures that have departed in this sad future-scape and all those wondrous beasts that still make our world miraculous - even when we don't take the time to recognize them - the novel reveals again and again what an incredible world we live in. And, the miracles she explores also include us - with all of our inconsistencies and our selfishness and our love and our commitments - as we navigate the earth and find the best way to be stewards of nature and of ourselves. This book was wonderful.

The Arctic terns are the birds with the longest migratory routes. Each year they fly all the way from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again. In this novel we're in a not-too-distant future that lost most of its wildlife. Our protagonist Franny is an ornithologist who wants to follow one of the last flocks of arctic terns on their arduous journey from pole to pole. Alongside birds and land creatures, most fish have gone extinct as well. Franny manages to secure herself a passage on one of the few leftover fishing boats. While strictly opposing all fishing like the rest of the nature-minded world, the promise of discovering rare fish swarms along the birds feeding route, is her ticket onto the boat.

Of people driven by a cause, an inner wilderness, that they can't shake. A very topical tale juxtaposing the people trying to save the planet, and those that get told they need to completely uproot their life and everything they know. I would have liked a bit more about the birds, and less about Franny's mysterious past and inner demons, but nevertheless, this was a wonderful read.

The fishing boat crew was fun, but felt forced like a perfectly diverse and interesting crew of characters selected for a TV show. Not real.

Highly recommend

A beautiful story about a woman with a wildness inside that makes her yearn to wander in nature, who is particularly drawn to the cold and wild sea, interspersed with the story of a world in which we've destroyed most or the natural world through climate change. It's a love story and more. sometimes the back and forth in time was frustrating but overall it was beautiful and moving and I highly recommend.

This was a chilly story to dip one's toes into. Frannie Stone is quite the character. She's focused on her mission to follow the last of the Arctic terns. The rest of her life story unfolds via flashbacks. I had some major issues with this, all of which I will blame on listening to the audio version instead of sitting and close reading this novel. The time jumps were hell on a listeners ear. I'm still in shock from, early on, when we learn that 10-year-old Frannie snuck off with a boy for two nights and came home to find her mother...just gone. Like, up and left or dead gone?I'm still unclear of why Frannie spent time in jail. I'm still unclear about what happened to her grandmother. At the same time, I don't feel like this was important enough (or enjoyable enough) for a reread. There were times while reading it, I was reminded of another book, [b:Burial Rights 21939898 Burial Rights Hannah Kent https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 21943144]. I see other reviewers comparing it to Moby Dick (which I have not read). I think the fact that I just read [b: The New Wilderness 48836769 The New Wilderness Diane Cook https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1597017220l/48836769.SY75.jpg 67686772] made me want to compare and contrast the world-building of this future of no animals, but we really don't see too much of Frannie's world before her expedition, at least, we don't see the effects of an animal-less world on her world. I'm curious to see how much of this sticks with me.

Migrations is the story of Franny Stone, a woman who seeks to follow the last of the Arctic terns on their final migration from Greenland to Antarctica. Franny searches and searches and at last finds a ship willing to allow her on board, enticed by the prospect that Franny's tracking devices on some of the terns will lead the ship to fish, one of the many animals of the world that has almost died out. Onboard the ship are a crew of lost souls much like Franny.

The story weaves in and out of the present with the past, and it's told beautifully. It's a frightening story as well, a look into a possible future.