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The Indifferent Stars Above Summary

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Daniel James Brown gave a very informative yet engaging nonfiction narrative of the historical tragedy Sarah Graves and her family acquainted themselves very well with that began in the spring of 1846 in Illinois. The Graves family originally set out to California in hopes of a greater life so they submitted themselves to the opportunity that was actually further from their reach than anticipated. Along with the rest of the Donner Party, a group led by two Donner brothers also setting off to California, they were rashly persuaded into the dangerous and unpromising terrain of the West following the unspoken but written direction of Lansford W. Hastings, an emigrant who presumed there was a simpler route to the California through the Wasatch …show more content…

Facts and seemingly useless information grotesquely beguile my slumber, so I usually have to really take my time reading something informative--except with Brown’s The Indifferent Stars Above. It doesn’t feel like you're reading a history book but rather a journey about ruthless and selfless people desperate for a new beginning who are willing to do anything to survive, even if feeding their children the roasted skin of their stale neighbor meant they’d live just one more day . The side notes Brown includes throughout his book either serve as descriptive factual detail of a subject matter or as a first person monologue (which is the only kind of first person monologue included). For example, when the author talks about the awareness of snow blindness and semantics of UVB rays to elaborate on the difficulty of seeing in the mountains or when the author included a letter from Frank Kellogg expressing his excitement of the opportunity in California to his family , building up then crushing your hopes of how many people actually get to enjoy this prosperity. Cleverly, Brown included the works of over 150 various researchers, enthusiasts, and other references to compose his retelling of the Donner Party survival story as accurately as possible, without seeming bland. He wanted to match every emotion, every sense, and every event in this historical tragedy with history perfectly. I had never read something

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