Voyage

Most young adult novels on the theme of coming to America in the early twentieth century deal with the trials people faced after passing inspection at Ellis Island and embarking on their new lives, usually on the Lower East Side in New York City. This book is different, for it takes place entirely on board a fictional ship, the SS Danzig, during its two-week journey from Hamburg. We encounter a large cast of characters, so many people in fact that it is difficult to remember who is who. It's a bit like a play by Chekhov, only without the cast listed at the beginning. And what a cast! From the courageous Mina to the withdrawn Rachel, from the old man Mr. Kaminsky to the young boy, Eli, the author has taken pains to portray every character type imaginable. Yankel, the fat bully, is the antagonist, but he's too one-dimensional to believe. Geras has depicted these characters in black and white, rather than in shades of gray. The other related problem in Voyage comes from the change of point of view. At times, the point of view is third person; at other times, first-person. The thread of the story gets lost as the author flits from character to character. What remains? Several moving passages, occasional effective images ("a mouth that bunched up around them like a drawstring bag pulled tightly shut"), and a few believable characters redeem the confusing narrative. Ages 11-14. Reviewed by Arlyne Samuels

The book The Voyage is about the journey from eastern Europe to America in 1904(30 years before World War 2)to escape the oppresion, persecution, and poverty in Eastern Europe. The main characters in the book are Jewish and have to live in the steerage compartment of the S.S. Danzig for two weeks and go through a lot of things, good and bad. On the S.S. Danzig lots of important things happened. People met new friends, they fell in love, they got sick, they died, they stole, and the helped each other stay alive. I thought this book was good writing and interesting but it wasn't very good about talking about all the horrible struggles and conflicts of the time. The author also brought in all the characters at the same time so it was hard to keep up becasue you weren't quite sure who everyone was. I think it explained how regular life was like for teenagers back then very well. What i learned the most about from this book was what it was like to take the voyage from eastern Europe to America as a strong healthy teenager. I don't think this book is very hard so i would say it is for younger readers. I also think it is more of a fun read than a informational read.

I was so dissapointed when I found out that this book is out of print. Although there wasn't much action, the main point of the book was the characters, and they were all so amazingly well developed that I even understood the perspective of the boy nobody liked. This book gives a great picture of wat it really must have been like to travel to America on a ship as an immigrant. A must read for anyone who likes really full characters you can really like, or anyone who had anscestors on these ships who wants to know what those months were really like for them.