Name: The Thorn Birds
ISBN: 9780061990472

Colleen McCullough

One of the most beloved novels of all time, Colleen McCullough's magnificent saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian outback has enthralled readers the world over. The Thorn Birds is a chronicle of three generations of Clearys—an indomitable clan of ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. It is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys' only daughter, Meggie, and the haunted priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart—and the intense joining of two hearts and souls over a lifetime, a relationship that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma.

A Novel

The Thorn Birds

         I avoid older books.  I try hard to read newer books, because it helps me stay relevant as I make my effort to be your preferred book blogger.  I follow celebrity book clubs, because Instagrammers and TikTokkers spend a lot of time and energy featured on those celebrity book clubs, and for the last few years, I’ve been following a few reading challenges.  The most popular of the yearly reading challengers is the Pop Sugar challenge, which is how this book made it to my reading pile.  The prompt was “Read a book that was published in the year you were born.” So, I decided to google the bestselling book of 1977, and that happened to be this classic.  This book sat on the shelf in my house for most of my life, and I vaguely remember picking it up once when I had nothing else to read…but finding it immediately not to my liking.  I might have been 15 at the time, so my literary tastes have changed quite a bit since then. 

            I finished this one in the middle of two VERY LONG books, so when I opened it and saw that it was also an insanely long book, I was a tad disheartened.  I was on the final push to make my reading goal for 2023, and 700+ page books tend to take longer than I’d like.  However, I was still optimistic, but at this point, I’m usually optimistic with books…I just love books.  I dug in, and was completely surprised.  This book was immediately better than I expected, and remembered.  I suppose that’s pretty easy when it was already historical fiction, so it wasn’t like the outlook of the situations was going to change, but I was still pleased with it. 

            I generally find myself unhappy with books that focus on the negative, and this book has so much of the negative, I became overwhelmed and almost gave up.  This family goes through so much “bad,” that it was hard to find a reason to keep reading.  That’s why I gave up on The Walking Dead, there was absolutely nothing to look forward to after all the characters I loved were killed off and there was no longer anything to look forward to.  There was also a level of age gap/pedophile situation…I had a hard time with that situation.  I do appreciate that it was acknowledged, but that it eventually turned into an offspring bothered me. 

            You might be asking, “Why did she give this book 4 stars if it was so problematic,” and that’s a valid question.  The story was compelling, from start to finish.  I found myself rooting for this family, hoping against the odds that everybody would come out ok (spoiler: they don’t).  I hoped that the creepy priest would leave Meggie alone (spoiler: he doesn’t).  I hoped the remainder of the siblings would find love, they don’t.  But the hope propelled me through the book.  For about 500 pages, absolutely nothing good happened to this family, and that is legitimately my biggest pet peeve when it comes to any story.  This one just contained that level of hope that kept me interested. 

            The main reason why this book received four stars was the writing itself.  The scope of the story was vast, and that alone deserves commendation.  The ability to write a generational, cross-continent saga that includes dynamic characters, vibrant settings, and the element of hope that kept this one alive deserves recognition.  There’s a reason why this one is considered a classic. 

Kristen Claiborn

         I avoid older books.  I try hard to read newer books, because it helps me stay relevant as I make my effort to be your preferred book blogger.  I follow celebrity book clubs, because Instagrammers and TikTokkers spend a lot of time and energy featured on those celebrity book clubs, and for the last few years, I’ve been following a few reading challenges.  The most popular of the yearly reading challengers is the Pop Sugar challenge, which is how this book made it to my reading pile.  The prompt was “Read a book that was published in the year you were born.” So, I decided to google the bestselling book of 1977, and that happened to be this classic.  This book sat on the shelf in my house for most of my life, and I vaguely remember picking it up once when I had nothing else to read…but finding it immediately not to my liking.  I might have been 15 at the time, so my literary tastes have changed quite a bit since then. 

            I finished this one in the middle of two VERY LONG books, so when I opened it and saw that it was also an insanely long book, I was a tad disheartened.  I was on the final push to make my reading goal for 2023, and 700+ page books tend to take longer than I’d like.  However, I was still optimistic, but at this point, I’m usually optimistic with books…I just love books.  I dug in, and was completely surprised.  This book was immediately better than I expected, and remembered.  I suppose that’s pretty easy when it was already historical fiction, so it wasn’t like the outlook of the situations was going to change, but I was still pleased with it. 

            I generally find myself unhappy with books that focus on the negative, and this book has so much of the negative, I became overwhelmed and almost gave up.  This family goes through so much “bad,” that it was hard to find a reason to keep reading.  That’s why I gave up on The Walking Dead, there was absolutely nothing to look forward to after all the characters I loved were killed off and there was no longer anything to look forward to.  There was also a level of age gap/pedophile situation…I had a hard time with that situation.  I do appreciate that it was acknowledged, but that it eventually turned into an offspring bothered me. 

            You might be asking, “Why did she give this book 4 stars if it was so problematic,” and that’s a valid question.  The story was compelling, from start to finish.  I found myself rooting for this family, hoping against the odds that everybody would come out ok (spoiler: they don’t).  I hoped that the creepy priest would leave Meggie alone (spoiler: he doesn’t).  I hoped the remainder of the siblings would find love, they don’t.  But the hope propelled me through the book.  For about 500 pages, absolutely nothing good happened to this family, and that is legitimately my biggest pet peeve when it comes to any story.  This one just contained that level of hope that kept me interested. 

            The main reason why this book received four stars was the writing itself.  The scope of the story was vast, and that alone deserves commendation.  The ability to write a generational, cross-continent saga that includes dynamic characters, vibrant settings, and the element of hope that kept this one alive deserves recognition.  There’s a reason why this one is considered a classic. 

Trish

I've been sorting through the archives of my blog and I found a post describing my thoughts and feelings on this book right after I finished it. It's less of a review and more of a rambling, but here it is for anyone who might be interested. Also, MAJOR SPOILERS below. 

Written 10/16/2013
(view spoiler)[
so i finished the thorn birds and i just have this sort of forlorn feeling. even though justine gets her happy ending (and i am happy for her and rain) i just can’t help the heaviness in my heart because meggie is all alone. she eventually lost every man she ever loved to something inanimate, yet somehow more powerful than she could ever be. she lost frank to his rebellion, and ralph and dane to their faith. in the end, meggie ends up in the same place fee was in after frank left. funny how history has a way of repeating itself. ralph’s death was so sudden i had to re-read the pages about ten times before i processed and accepted what i had just read. dane died only some pages ago, there’s no way ralph is gone too. but at least i can find some solace in the fact that he died knowing that he had had a son, and he died in meggie’s arms, looking into her eyes. what a tragedy.

i’m honestly just still in awe of this book. my parents loved it when they were young and i just really enjoyed reading it and i grew so fond of meggie i feel like i watched her grow old before my eyes in only 3 days. it hardly seems possible that so much love, heartache, passion, and ambition could be captured between these 700 pages. though long, i somehow couldn’t bring myself to read the last 15 pages. i didn’t want it to end the way that it did. yet i knew that there was no way to bring ralph or dane back from the dead. no way to bring the life and compassion back into frank’s eyes. it hurt because there was no happy ending for the characters i loved the most. they just died. anyways, i’m just making myself more and more upset by thinking about it so i’m just not going to think about them anymore. at least not until the weekend. maybe then i’ll re-read the part where ralph visits meggie on matlock island, and when he comes to drogheda and sees dane for the first time. yeah, i’ll end it on a good note so that the next time i pick it up, i’ll only remember how sweet and fulfilling it was. 
 (hide spoiler)]

The Thorn Birds A Novel

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