1906 by James Dalessandro – July 25, 2022

 

Today's "unasked for book review" is on the novel "1906" by James Dalessandro. This is a work of historical fiction, written like a series of journal or diary entries. The book starts several days before the earthquake hits. I liked the book well enough. It was well written, and I liked reading about San Francisco, revisiting streets and establishments that are still around today (many rebuilt). But there was a lot of corruption in San Francisco at the time, so there are some pretty despicable characters in the book. Some of these characters are a composite of real people, others are real people who lived at the time.

Sooooo, I kind of couldn't wait for one of the most horrific natural disasters to hit the modern world, to happen. Terrible, I know. That's where I was mentally with all the time spent on the corruption prior to the earthquake. (Children sold into sexual slavery, people Shanghaied into slavery on ships, and more). I just wasn't mentally prepared for that content coming into a book about the 1906 earthquake. The book became more palatable to me when the earthquake hit, because the author focused more on its effects and the aftereffects with fairly historic accuracy.

This concludes today's "unasked for book review".

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