The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party (P.S.)

Loved loved loved. But can I get a map?

This is a well detailed book that allowed me to understand the history behind some people who experienced horrors I can’t imagine. However, because it goes in-depth about the trauma and tragedy that occurs I did have to put done the book and take several breaks. This story is a lot to take in.

This book follows the harrowing journey of the Donner party. It chronicles the group’s journey from the very beginning in Illinois all the way till their deaths after their rescue. As someone who has known about the Donner party for years but never really done any research on the tragedy, this was a very eye opening read. This book was very detailed and tracks the whole journey this group took with the help of journals, clippings, and other recountings of the events. The author also provides his own inputs on the journey after traveling the trail in modern times. Also, after reading this book I now understand why modern copies of this book dropped the “Bride” part at the end of the subtitle because while this does talk about Sarah Graves, it focuses on everyone in the Donner party equally. Yes, Sarah’s part of the story is told, but I feel like the focus on her is really only at the beginning of the journey and after their rescue. While this was a terrible tragedy, it was also really fascinating to learn how everything went wrong for this group. I learned a lot about what it was like to journey west and what exactly happened to this group. The biggest thing I learned was that it wasn’t just one camp, it was actually multiple. Also multiple attempts were made to make it out of the mountain to safety which led to the group being spread out over the mountain and trapped. I also learned that this was a very large group of people who got trapped. For some reason, I thought the Donner party was just a small group of people, but no it was actually 87 people who went into that mountain and only 48 came out, mainly women and children. Basically, this was just a very well researched and informative look at the Donner Party’s journey and tragedy. I learned a lot about this event and about what it was like on the open road for these people. I also really enjoyed that the author included what happened to the survivors after this event and how they ended up living their lives. It just provided a really well rounded look at this journey and the lives of the people in it. TW: death; child death; cannibalism; starvation; abandonment; animal death; PTSD;

A personal historic retelling of the Donner Party through the eyes of a novelist. Each scene felt vibrant and intimate, like one is in the wagon with the party. Great introduction to historical non-fiction and cured my reading slump!

Incredibly emotional narrative nonfiction detailing the journey of the Donner-reed Party traveling from Illinois to California in 1846, and the tragic deaths of nearly half the party in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Brown is an amazing writer who takes a vast collection of source material and transforms it into a gripping story. I appreciated that Brown frequently broke from the story and offered context behind certain historical events and even scientific/medical explanations, it helped better put things into perspective. If you’ve never heard of the Donner Party, or have done your share of research (like I did) and want more, I highly recommend this book.