“Brooklyn” is a beautiful novel by Colm Tóibín that explores broadly human themes in a well-portrayed specific setting. When Ellis, a young Irish girl, leaves her home town of Enniscorthy for the wide world of New York in America, she is awkward, wide-eyed, and ill-prepared for what greets her on the other side of the Atlantic. When she returns to visit years later in the wake a family tragedy, her nostalgia for the past and perspective on the present are both shaken.

This novel will connect with any of those who have left home, be it for university, a job, or a loved one, to the next town over or to a far-off country with foreign customs and people. After such a move, there is a strange, sad, yet beautiful feeling that comes when you visit the place of your growing up after many years, and realize that it and you have changed, and changed separately. That simultaneous rush of fear and excitement, loss and opportunity, memory and expectation, is captured honestly in this novel.

I consider this novel well-worth reading. If you have a Nook, let me know, I would be happy to eLoan it to you!

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