Unspeakable

Summary

Unspeakable by Caroline Pignat is a tragic story about a young girl by the name of Ellen Hardy (but everyone calls her Ellie) who has survived a disastrous shipwreck.

Ellie boarded the Empress of Ireland as a stewardesses. Each night, Ellie would sneak out of the stewardess's cabin to get some fresh air by the ship's rail. One night, while Ellie was at the rail, she noticed a shadow. The shadow belonged to Jim Farrow, a fire stoker. They started talking, and Ellie realized that she was having a good time. Every night after that, they would both go to the rail to meet each other. Ellie soon fell in love with this mysterious fire stoker.

When the Empress docked in Quebec, Jim took Ellie to go sightseeing. They spent the entire day together, and when Ellie was considering telling him her feelings, he told her that they couldn't be together and left her standing at the dock. She was heartbroken. The night that they set sail from Quebec, Ellie finds Jim scribbling in a journal at the rail. When he notices her, he approaches her and kisses her. That's when it happened...

The Storstad barreled into the Empress, cutting into her side. Perhaps if the Storstad had not moved, it could have staunched the wound. But instead, the Storstad pulled itself free and disappeared. Water poured into the Empress, and she started to list. Jim told Ellie to get to a lifeboat and then left to go help the rest of the crew...and she never saw him again. She kept telling herself that he survived, but she found it hard to believe when hundreds didn't.

Ellie was the only stewardess aboard the Empress that survived. When a journalist named Wyatt Steele asks for Ellie's story, she refuses. But when he shows her Jim's journal, she longs for a chance to read it, to find out what happened to the man she had fallen in love with, and to know if he had survived or not. But she would have to tell her shameful story to the world, to expose the secrets that she had buried long ago, and Steele would "pay" her by giving her Jim's journal one page at a time...

Characters

Caroline Pignat did a good job of  creating distinct, believable characters. She gave each character a background story and a distinct personality. The main character in the novel Unspeakable is an eighteen-year-old girl named Ellen Hardy. Ellie came from a rich family and seemed like a very selfish, spoiled girl, so being sent aboard the Empress as a stewardess humbled her, and she began to mature. After surviving the sinking of the Empress, and losing many loved ones, you can see how Ellie starts as a girl and becomes a woman. Ellie's story aboard the Empress is told through flashbacks as she explains it to Wyatt Steele, a journalist from the New York Times. She had a shameful past, and many emotions were expressed in telling it. I think it would have given the reader a better understanding of Ellie visually if she had been described in a bit more detail.

Another character in the novel Unspeakable was Jim, the fire stoker that Ellie fell in love with. He is a man with many secrets, and he often keeps to himself, giving him a mysterious personality. Like Ellie, Jim had a past that made him feel very shameful. When Jim is first introduced in the book, you don't know much about him, but when he opens up to Ellie and tells her about his past, it conveys many emotions, making him more realistic. I also liked the way that Caroline Pignat describes Jim's eyes. Instead of describing them as blue, she describes them as "iceberg eyes".

Setting

The setting of the story alternated because Ellie's story aboard the Empress was told through flashbacks. The book starts off on May 29, 1914 in Rimouski, Quebec, a day after the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. The survivors of the shipwreck were taken by the Eureka and the Lady Evelyn to the nearest town, Rimouski. It did not describe the town very thoroughly, other than the shed that held the dead, and how a french woman had taken Ellie into her home and taken care of her. I would have liked it better if the house of the woman who took care of Ellie, and the town o Rimouski was described more thoroughly.

Another setting in the book was on the Empress. The book had described some of the rooms, but I think the most important place on the Empress was the rail where Ellie and Jim had first talked. Many of the flashbacks took place at the rail.

Standview Manor in Liverpool, was another important setting. It was where most of the story took place. Most of the rooms were described very thoroughly, allowing the reader to visualize what the mansion looked like.

Theme

I found two themes in the novel Unspeakable. The first theme was love. This novel was a love story much like the Titanic. Ellie fell in love with Jim, lost him when the Empress sank, and found him again. The second theme was hope. Even when she thought she had lost him, Ellie never gave up hope, and in the end she found him again.

Plot

In the novel Unspeakable, a girl named Ellen Hardy survives a tragic shipwreck, but loses Jim, the mysterious fire stoker that she had fallen in love with. The plot of the book wasn't exactly the most creative or original idea that I have ever seen. There are many stories like this book, for instance, the Titanic. Even so, I still greatly enjoyed this book because of all the surprises along the way. One thing that intrigued me the most was the revelation of secrets. Both Ellie and Jim had their secrets, and they were afraid to share the secrets with each other for fear of losing the other. But in the end they did reveal their secrets and they both still loved each other despite the other's past.

Voice

The novel Unspeakable is narrated by the main character Ellie. I believe that this was a good choice because it allows the reader to see the story through Ellie's eyes and to feel her emotions. Many times when a story is told in third person, many secrets are revealed to the reader but not to the main character. I think that this ruins the element of surprise when the main character figures out the secret. In Unspeakable, when Jim reveals his past to Ellie, it is a very shocking and emotional part of the book. If the story was written in third person, and Jim had explained his past in his thoughts, then that would have ruined the surprise when he tells Ellie.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Unspeakable was a wonderful novel, and I greatly enjoyed reading it.  I would definitely recommend this book to whoever is reading this.

I give this book 8 out of 10 stars :)