This book took me to the 1850s in Ohio but the journey didn’t begin there. The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier begins in England with a long journey by ship across the ocean and then by land to the destination of a small town in Ohio.
I don’t envy the people of those times who made those brutal journeys across the ocean in rickety ships. Even though Honor Bright (the main character) made a tough journey, the book wasn’t difficult to read at all. It’s a somewhat short book but it’s packed with a lot of interesting relationships and also journeys.
It’s nice to read the book and see that there were those who stuck to their morals even if they went against the law of the land. She had a part in the underground railroad and helped those in need. There wasn’t anything to not like about the book except maybe that it wasn’t long enough.
Almost the entirety of the book takes place in a small town in Ohio between Oberlin and Wellington which are small on their own then she has to live in an even smaller town. I was curious and looked on the map for those two towns and it doesn’t look like the area where she lived ever became a town.
While I don’t envy those who had to live in those times, I do enjoy learning a bit about them. The Last Runaway does a good job of making a story you think might be boring into something very interesting. I never knew quilting, millinery, and farming could be so interesting.
If you want to go back into the 1850s when slavery was still alive, people were fighting it, and life was difficult (but yet simple) then this book is a must-read. It was a fun book that gives some good insights into the time. It also sounds like the author did her research, and she covered many aspects of the book seemingly very accurately. I wouldn’t know otherwise but I’m grateful that she went over some of her sources and how she did her research at the end.
It’s a very well written book and I’d recommend having a read of it.
Onwards
I took some time off work for no particular reason except to take of (isn’t that the best kind of time off?) so I decided I also wasn’t going to read a business book this time. So, my next book is also a fun book and a very interestingly formatted book at that.
I’ve begun reading Ireland by Frank Delaney which is so far good but not great. I wasn’t sold on the sample alone but the reviews of the book pushed me to purchase it. I’m not in love with how it’s formatted given that it has 0 chapters and seemingly 0 breaks.
The book is better now that I’m a bit further into it but the formatted does drive me a bit nuts. Maybe that’s a bit of OCD?
So my next book review is going to be another fun one. It may take me a bit longer to get there, though, because this book is a bit longer. I’ll hopefully have written about something else until then so this blog isn’t just book reviews even though I do enjoy writing them.