SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

A few questions to get us started:


1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the characters?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?

I really enjoyed Migrations and it made me a fan of McConaghy in general.

I think the writing itself captured me the most, for me it was a quiet, atmospheric type of read.

The world was depressingly close to now and accurate. I loved Franny's somewhat dark journey. The ending was a bit to weird for me to give it 5 stars

The world is dismal but it matches the depressing story.

Franny spends the vast majority of the book hating herself and while I get it, the overwhelming desire for self-destruction wears me out. The rest of the characters don’t stick with me.

Charlotte McConaghy writes beautifully with a well-crafted plot, steady pace, and a bit of hope at the end.

This was such a wonderful book with the necessary tears. The author tells the story of Franny Stone, a young woman with wandering feeth. She can love someone, but can't stay. She needs to go...
The story takes place in the near future: most of the wild animals are extinct and those who are left, like the Arctic Terns, are hard to find. There are only farm animals, pets...animals for human purpose. Besides that global warming is really manifesting time with no more fish left. The fishermen can't fish anymore due to the ban of the governement. That's the background where Franny lives in, but she has her own 'emotional' backpack to carry, packed with love, grief, a crime and a broken family. Franny's grandmother and mother had wandering feed, so she inhereted it in a way. But her wandering feet are the cause that her mother commited suicide. In denial of that she wanders off and travels in search of her mother and her lost family. Until she meets Niall, a biologist, who cares about birds specifically and is very worried about what is happening to the animals and the world. They are a perfect match and he seems to understand Franny and her wandering feet. They get married instantly and when Franny feels the urge to wander, Nial lets her go, always knowing that she'll turn back. But then they got stricken by a very sad, heartbreaking event in losing their daughter, Iris. Franny is convinced that, once again, she is followed by death and grief and she blames herself. Nial and Franny grew apart, then come together, but the unthinkable happens...and the only thing Franny wants is to punish herself as much as she can and goes to prison. The story goes back and forth, between past and present. It starts with Franny on a mission to follow the last Arctic Terns all the way from Greenland to Antarctica on their migration route. For that Franny embarks on the shipping vessel, the Sanghani, with a crew who knows that this will be their last fishing haul. All the fishermen and fisherwoman have their own burden and background to be on the vessel. Franny convinces the skipper Ennis and his crew to go to the Arctic. It's a dangerous mission and only Franny and Ennis at last reaches the destination. Franny was intended to end her life on the Arctic when she reaches it, because of all the grief, the wandering, her broken family, but then she sees the impossible and choose to live. Also, almost at the end of the book you get to know why she felt the urge to follow the last Arctic Terns.

I don't think this review does any good to the book. It's just a book you need to read it, to understand what I wrote. It's a book that you don't only read, but you feel it in your veins, in your heart...

There's a reference to Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez (1985). I read the novek way back when it was first published and cannot remember or understand the reference. Does anyone remember or understand the reference?

we're going to be discussing this book on zoom in 2 hours! check out the VBC thread for more info!