Book info

• Title The Thorn Birds
• Author Colleen McCullough
• Year 1977
• Genre Historical

In the rugged Australian Outback, three generations of Clearys live through joy and sadness, bitter defeat and magnificent triumph, driven by their dreams, sustained by remarkable strength of character... and torn by dark passions, violence and a scandalous family legacy of forbidden love.

Thoughts

As part of my Big Read list, I hadn’t heard of this book before, but it was an interesting one! Another of those sprawling epics following multiple generations of the same family through birth, love, death and everything in between. Set in New Zealand and Australia at the turn of the 20th century, there’s plenty of reference to the heat, humidity and dust, and the suffocating nature of the conditions really comes across in the prose.

Some of the dialogue felt a little stilted, somewhat forced, but also somehow believable. The characters were all stubborn but well-rounded, some likeable, some less so. Ultimately, it was fascinating following the characters as they travelled the globe and weaved in and out of each other’s lives. It’s not a book I would have picked up by myself, but I’m glad it was on the list.

Rating: 4 / 5