Unspeakable
By Caroline Pignat
Synopsis (from Goodreads):
On her first voyage as a stewardess aboard the Empress of Ireland, Ellie is drawn to the solitary fire stoker who stands by the ship’s rail late at night, often writing in a journal.
Jim. Ellie finds it hard to think of his name now. After their wonderful time in Quebec City, that awful night happened. The screams, the bodies, the frigid waters … she tries hard to tell herself that he survived, but it’s hard to believe when so many didn’t. So when Wyatt Steele, journalist at The New York Times asks her for her story, Ellie refuses. But when he shows her Jim’s journal, she jumps at the chance to be able to read it herself, to find some trace of the man she had fallen in love with, or perhaps a clue to what happened to him. There’s only one catch: she will have to tell her story to Steele and he’ll “pay” her by giving her the journal, one page at a time.
Jim. Ellie finds it hard to think of his name now. After their wonderful time in Quebec City, that awful night happened. The screams, the bodies, the frigid waters … she tries hard to tell herself that he survived, but it’s hard to believe when so many didn’t. So when Wyatt Steele, journalist at The New York Times asks her for her story, Ellie refuses. But when he shows her Jim’s journal, she jumps at the chance to be able to read it herself, to find some trace of the man she had fallen in love with, or perhaps a clue to what happened to him. There’s only one catch: she will have to tell her story to Steele and he’ll “pay” her by giving her the journal, one page at a time.
My rating: 5 stars
Spoiler Free Review:
This book was so much more than I thought it was going to
be! It has defiantly earned a spot on my favorite's shelf. I bought this book solely because of the fact that I was book shopping online and it was super cheap, once I read the plot summary I figured that I would love it because of its similarities to Fateful by Claudia Gray, which I love so
much, but it was so much more complex than I could have expected. This book had
me tearing up one minute and then speed reading the next just to find out
what was going to happen. Unspeakable was about love, grief and
finding one’s self and I really liked all of those elements combining to make a
great story.
The Positives:
Pignat's writing style.
I found the story telling in this book very interesting.
Pignat jumps all around in terms of the timeline of the story, while I can see
how some people would find this difficult to follow I personally really liked
it because it was different from how most stories are told.
The timeline of the story. I really enjoyed the fact that we followed the
protagonist, Ellie for so long. When I first picked up this book I was
expecting to just read about the tragedy and a little about the aftermath. But
this book followed Ellie through so much more and I loved getting to see her
character grow and develop more.
Ellie's character. I really like Ellie as a protagonist. I thought she was a likeable and inspiring character and I really enjoyed seeing her grow as the story went on.
The accuracy. While I was not actually on the Empress in 1914 I think that Pignat did a really good job of making you feel like you actually were. You could tell that she did her research.
The Negatives:
The cover. While this has nothing to do with the actual
story, enjoy my little rant. Why is the girl on the cover wearing what looks
like a modern prom dress? This story takes place in 1914, I don’t think that
people at that time wore dresses like that. And even if it is supposed to be a
fancy dress from 1914 Ellie wouldn’t have been wearing one because 1) she was a
stewardess on the ship, not a wealthy passenger and 2) it was night time when
the ship sank, and everyone was wearing night gowns. Sorry about the pointless
rant, but it really bothers me.
Character relationships. I just wish that some of the relationships between characters had been developed more than they were (more on this in the spoiler section).
Overall I was so happily surprised by how much I enjoyed
this book and it is completely beyond me as to why it isn’t more popular. I
highly suggest picking this book up.
WARNING SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!
I just wanted to talk about how I felt about the characters with some spoilers. While I personally liked Ellie I know that some other reviews of this book that I read said that they thought she was whiny, which she was, but I let it slide because I sympathetic to all that she had endured, between being disowned, having her child taken away from her and then dealing with the sinking. And because of all that she had endured and how she grew and changed as a character I really liked her. Now on to a character I didn’t like, Steele, I really did not like this man. He saw how traumatized Ellie was by all of this but yet he still pushed and bribed her with Jim’s journal. That was so not cool with me. There were a few points in the book where I thought that Ellie and Steele might develop a romantic relationship and all I could think as I was reading was no, no please no. But by the end I really didn’t hate him as much, I had a feeling from the start that he wasn’t actually going to publish the article and I gained more respect for him knowing that he didn’t even write it at all. Now on to Jim, I liked him, I would have liked to have seen more of his and Ellie’s conversations at the rail so that their relationship could have been developed more. I wish there had been a more developed relationship between Ellie and Meg as well. I feel like I didn’t even know Meg or about how she and Ellie became friends. Because of this I felt sad when she died, but her death didn’t hit me as hard as a fully developed character’s would have.
One last thing that I wanted to touch on was the one problem that I had with the way this book was written, jumping around so much and this was at the end when Jim came back. At the point when he showed up and we finally found out that he was alive I didn’t really
feel anything. I just felt so disconnected from him at that point in the story,
because we hadn’t seen his character for a while. This was so disappointing for me because I wanted to be so excited when I found out that he was actually alive, but I just wasn't.
So that's my review on Unspeakable, I really loved this book and can't wait to reread it at some point. Have thoughts? Feel free to comment them! Thank you so much for reading!
- Abby
