Misfit’s Reviews > Maura's Dream > Status Update

STRIKE!

And worse, far worse, was the secret, tiny longing within her eighteen-year old soul to just give up, drop everything, and let this handsome young man sweep her away, let him take her anywhere he wanted, just so she would no longer have to think.

She was only eighteen, without money, without support, and she must first make a life for herself. No accident was going to determine her fate. Her fate was to make her own way, create her own world.

Maura discovers finding a job in old New York isn't quite so easy, and that $100 is going faster than she expected.

I am liking Maura's character. Despite the hell she's been through (steerage and being sold into prostitution, she's not one to be down and out. She's smart enough to know she has to wait for her chance at freedom and play the game to survive in the meantime. She's not a Marysue, nor is she a perpetual victim. Rather refreshing, that.

"...no one supposd they were taking her toa doctor, and the only other possibility seemed to be the East River, either to drown her or to sink what was already dead."

She had come to the New World, but freedom hadn't been granted her; freedom was somewhere else, off in the future, in a place and time where she would be strong., when the stuff of her dreams would not be stifled by the world of men.

Ten days in steerage was hell enough, but now there's immigration at Ellis Island to get through...

On ship to the promised land, but steerage isn't exactly a dream cruise.

Life began on on the other side of the ocean, in America, and until she got there, she would not smile on account of her green eyes and auburn hair, she would not thank God for her daily bread, and she would not fall in love, she would simply do nothing other than plan her escape.