The Indifferent Stars Above

The author follows one young woman's harrowing journey from Illinois to California and the bitter months spent trapped by snow in the mountains without food. Her bravery and fortitude are remarkable. Luck was not on their side. Plus, her father's willingness to take risks was somewhat responsible for their getting themselves into the mess, but also helped get at least some of them out of it. Very interesting look at the way humans behave in extreme conditions.

This harrowing story is written with so much historical context and sympathy that humanized the Donner-Reed Party very well. This book does an incredible job of breathing life into these emigrants' stories and legacies.

Throughout the entire tale all I could think was, "Why? Were things that bad in Illinois that they had to risk everything in the wildness?" Mary Ann Graves said it best in her letter to family back east, "Stay at home--you are in a good place."

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves learning about the Old West, the wild idea of Manifest Destiny and the people who embarked into vast nothingness to create what they thought would be a better life.

This is definitely one of those nonfic book that reads more like a thriller. The author did a spectacular job of building suspense and did one of my favorite literary devices while writing this book; taking the point of view of the narrator who already knows how the story ends and all the terrible things that will happen and dropping little bits of foreshadowing at the ends of sections and paragraphs to keep the ready on the hook, always tense and unnerved by when disaster is going to strike.

The story of the Donner Party is even more horrific than I ever imagined. I knew the basics going in as I'm sure most people do but the explicit details are so unsettling that they stuck with me even when I wasn't actively reading the book. I had to take a break from reading it even though I wanted to continue because there was a day when I just knew my mental health wouldn't hold up against the heavy story that was being told. If I hadn't had to do that, I probably would've flown through this story in two days.

This book is in a technical sense very easy to read, moving quickly and efficiently through the timeline while still going off on brief tangents that add to the story and never get you bored, but it is a very heavy and dark read all the same. Still, I think this book told the history of the Donner Party in the best way it could to keep the reader engaged while also respecting the solemnity of the tragedy. 

This was a very good read.

I knew enough about this harrowing tragedy and it was still not enough to prepare me when the Donner Party eventually becomes stranded. This heartbreaking, riveting and complicated story (due to the idea of Manifest Destiny and it's effect on the indigenous people at the time) was hard to put down. You follow Sarah Fosdick, a new bride, through a journey along 87 other families who try to make their way to California, and the foils of traversing new lands bring to many. The book is supported by letters and accounts of those who also made the journey and the physiological and psychological evidence to support the choices made by so many desperate to survive.

I'm a sucker for some historical fiction and this did not disappoint.

I couldn't believe how much I didn't know about the Donner Party. Jesus Christ this shit was HARROWING.

I liked the decision to zoom in on one particular individual of the party (Sarah Graves) while still giving added context. It was overall a pretty good balance between narrative flow and big picture stuff, and for a Westward Expansion book I thought it did an okay job of attempting to depict Native American perspectives though it wasn't the focus.

If you're interested in the Donner Party, would definitely recommend.

A great mix of historical accuracy and an imagining of specifics that history can't know for sure about the unutterably tragic story of the Donner Party