Reviewed: “Across a Broken Shore” by Amy Trueblood

As you’ll see at the end of this review of Amy Trueblood’s Across a Broken Shore, there are things in this story that some people might find hard to read for pleasure. None of it, however, is gratuitous. And so the things that might make a reader uncomfortable; i.e. religious discrimination, gender inequality, and alcoholism, are what make the story real. A novel purporting to be set in the later years of the Great Depression with the backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge being built by day workers just trying to survive could not be believable if it didn’t have it’s raw moments.

Across a Broken Shore is the story of Willa MacCarthy, the only daughter of devoted Irish Catholic parents in San Francisco who have long dreamed of having their daughter become a nun. And Willa promised them that she would, before she discovered her passion for medical textbooks. Willa’s story follows that passion through a chance meeting with a then still rare woman doctor who convinces her to work as an apprentice of sorts and encourages her to give up the convent for medical school. Along the way, Willa finds herself drawn to the needy, rootless families in the Hoovervilles who are often without their men as the men search far and wide for work when there aren’t jobs to be had building the bridge. It’s those women and children suffering that make her wonder if she couldn’t provide more care with medicine than with prayer.

All of this leads to a complicated subterfuge that involves a high-spirited best friend, a handsome but mysterious Protestant, and a band of brothers protecting their baby sister at all costs, even following her lead.

It’s Willa’s journey at it’s core, but it’s the story of a family changing too as their beliefs and their values are called into question because Willa finds the courage to follow her heart.

The end of the novel seems a little abrupt, though it is satisfying, and some of the conversations about strong-arming Willa into the convent are repeated a few too many times. Otherwise it would be a five-star novel. It also seems to be classified as young adult but given that she’s finished high school and goes through a world of adult issues, it would seem a better fit in the new adult genre or even just women’s fiction.

• My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Genre(s): historical fiction, women’s fiction, new adult
• Content warnings: alcoholism, vivid medical descriptions, religious pressure and discrimination, gender inequality

I received a copy of Across a Broken Shore through NetGalley & North Star Editions – Flux in exchange for an honest and original review. All thoughts are my own.