Reviews for When We Were Strangers

The average rating for When We Were Strangers based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-02-07 00:00:00 Rita Burns 3.5 Stars When we were Strangers is an inspiring story of strength, determination and courage of a young Italian Woman who travels across the world in 1880s to better her life. Pamela Schoenewaldt's debut novel tells the story of the lonely and eventful journey of Irma, a young Italian woman possessed of a quiet inner strength as she ventures alone into a wide, unknown world of the 1880s America. Irma begins her life in the remote Italian mountain village of Opi. Her ancestors found only misfortune after leaving their home, but with a plain face and too small of a dowry and men appatently "as scarce as hens teeth" twenty-year-old Irma sees no other choice but to take the boat in search of a better life. Her brother emigrates to America and shortly afterward Irma find herself taking the same path and hoping to meet up with him in America. I really enjoyed this book as my own great grandmother travelled around this time to America from Ireland I was interested in Irma's story. I think it really captures the struggle of emigrants from all over the world who travelled to American to seek their fortune at this period in time. I really felt the author captured the sense of time and place and I really found myself seeing everything through Irma's eyes. I really appreciated the struggle with the language for someone like Irma and dealing with leaving a close nit village to a vast city must have been such a struggle for emigrants. I also felt the great sense of loneliness and fear that must have been felt by women travelling alone at the time. "It was not for love that poor girls sough husbands. We yearned for daily bread and a tight roof, firewood in winter and with luck a main who wouldnt beat us, who would talk with us in the long" Women back then wanted to little and ended up with putting up with so much. This book is good historical fiction and the characters are very well written and believable, I think the author did a good job with her research and I found myself turning the pages quite quickly.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-04-24 00:00:00 Michael Fisher Historical fiction. Follows young Irma as she emigrates from a tiny town in Italy to the US, first to NYC, then Cleveland, Chicago, and, finally, San Francisco. She earns her way as a seamstress doing first collar piece work in Cleveland and then fine embroidery and sewing for rich ladies in Chicago. I think the best adjective to describe this book would be: "uneven." Some parts - brilliant, descriptive, flash of magic in the word choices, descriptions, insight. Other parts - so mediocre or simplistic, they jump out like dull rocks in a heap of diamonds. Did these parts just miss editing? I just don't know. One example is: Irma lay covering her scar for the next few days at the bottom of the ship; but she had just gotten the cut a few days ago; how could it already be a scar? Very weird. Throughout the book you could also hear the author putting forth her own modern-day lessons and points of view, which was jarring. Example: Irma jumps in to defend the two lesbians on the boat. Umm, really? Not so sure a little Catholic girl from a tiny village in Italy at the end of the 19th century would have done this. Overall grade: C+. PS My last bone to pick: what the heck does the title have to do with anything? I am getting tired of nebulous, "female-sounding," titles. Have you all noticed this? So many of books which appeal to females, I feel, are titled something like, "The wisp of the grass in June," or "Winter's pale fog," or "Drifting Dreams." Say wha???? The books themselves are fine, but what's up with these titles?