REVIEW: Outcasts of Essex by Jane Hulse

JayneB Reviews / Book ReviewsAmerican Revolution / Historical fiction / New Hampshire / Young-AdultNo Comments

Essex, New Hampshire, April 1775.

Fifteen-year-old Sarah Barrett hates the mess of childbirth, yet she’s the unwilling apprentice to the town’s only midwife—her mother. She longs to be a writer like her father, who publishes the weekly Essex Journal.

As the American Revolution heats up, his pro-British views turn the town against the family. Troubles deepen when a smallpox epidemic hits the town, and her mother pushes a crude, controversial inoculation.

Sarah finds herself questioning everything: the fight for independence, her father’s judgment, her own failings, and more to the point, why it’s considered unthinkable for a young woman to write for a newspaper.

When she learns the redcoats and the patriots will soon clash over a stockpile of munitions in Essex, she comes up with a risky plan to thwart the bloodbath.

Dear Ms. Hulse,

This sounded interesting and since I enjoy YA historical fiction, I thought I’d give it a try. I see that there is another book in this series but this one actually starts the action. In just-barely American Revolution New Hampshire, young fifteen year old Sarah Barrett is a bit sulky and dissatisfied with life. Her midwife mother drags Sarah along to birthings, something Sarah hates, while her father, a pro-British loyalist, refuses to hear of Sarah doing what she really wants – writing for the newspaper. As tensions mount between townsfolk over which side of the now seemingly inevitable war to support, Sarah will have to face hard challenges and choices.

I have mixed feelings about this one but I think a lot of that is because I’m an adult reading about a fifteen year old. Sarah can be a mess at times but then most people her age are when faced with parents telling them to do this when they’d rather do that. Sarah’s best friend Emma moons over potential suitors while Sarah longs to do what she wants and hates being dragged out of bed on a cold morning. Sarah and her mother have a complicated relationship with Sarah feeling her mother gives more tender care to her patients than to her daughter. Sarah and her older brother, the only two of their parents’ children to survive childhood, tease each other and have their moments, too. So yes, Sarah frustrated me but she also reads like a teenager albeit a more modern one.

The book is both historical and slightly modern at times in feel. The reality of home births, lack of modern medical care – despite Mrs. Barrett’s efforts and skills, and life with only fireplaces for heat contrasts with language which feels more modern. It doesn’t bother me that Sarah wants to be a writer as she’s grown up watching her British born father run the small town newspaper as an agent of the Crown. His stern reluctance to even think of her writing anything for publication rings true as well.

When the book opens, the tensions in town are already simmering between loyalists and those angry at British taxation. But pretty soon things move past the point of no return when Something in Essex is followed by events in neighboring Massachusetts. There are threats against Loyalists and as Mr. Barrett as well as the minister are firm in their loyalty to the King, Sarah has a front two view of how ugly things are getting. In addition, there is a raging debate over whether smallpox inoculations are cutting edge medical science (my term, not the book’s) or a horrific mistake which will spread the disease faster. And not everyone I would have thought would support it actually does. All this makes me think of our current issues with freedom of speech and vaccinations.

I like that both sides – Loyalists and Rebels – are shown as equally right and wrong. No one is a shining example here but as Sarah’s POV is ours in the story, the Rebels come off as a bit more unhinged. Sarah has a tendency to act first and then consider how her actions and plans might affect others as well as herself. Through sheer force of will, she can usually badger others into doing what she wants only to later wonder if she’s gone too far. But by gosh she plans big, aims high, and I have to admire her audacity. I would like to read the other book in the series though I still think this is more a YA’s YA book. B

~Jayne

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