The Four Streets

I Read at least 6 hours a day And I am quite unhappy if I'm not already involved in a good book This book is not the usual genre of book that I read but on a whim decided to read it And I was not let down.The characters could live right next door to me, they are so real and vivid, the story leads you along with bated breath, this book is off the dam chain and a definite must read, I couldn't put it down. Okay buy, I am in a hurry for book 2.

It’s a very good book except for one part where a priest abuses a young girl and it was way, way too explicit with details. The way the rest of the story is written that part could have been much less descriptive and still gotten the point across. Otherwise I would have given it a 5.

A friend introduced me to this book and I was immediately caught up with the story about Four Streets. I couldn't stop reading this book. I enjoyed it so much that I have now begun to read Book 2 .Thinking about Christmas this early, I will be buying the trilogy books to give as a gift.This book moves along with so much exciting moments in a short time, it is difficult to put it down.Nadine Dories is a great writer.

Oh my goodness! This is the best series ever!! I couldn't put it down with almost feeling like I was there in kitchen, in the homes, in the family conversations. It was a storyline that took so many different twists and turns, and had me crying over the sad times that came along with the struggle of the Irish to make a living for their families and the closeness of the women who held those families together. It is a book you won't forget. I ordered the second book, Hide Her Name and that was the same intrigue that continued from The Four Streets, and I ordered The Ballymara Road to finish the saga . What a read!!!

This is a dark storyline with exceptional characters and your storytelling weaves a compelling and captivating tale. Thankfully you bring Alice out of the hell she lived thru. Poor Kitty and Nellie are dealt terrible hands that remain to be saved. Realizing that the circumstances involved are unfortunately true and need to be brought to life, you have done so remarkably with love and caring. Hope the sun shines in the future lives of everyone.

This story brought back my childhood living in the UK in the 50s and 60s.The author really caught the atmosphere of families living in terraced houses in those years.They lived from week to week on the breadwinners salary (the man) and had to make do with what they had because they had many mouths to feed. The neighbours rallied around and helped one another and woe betide anyone who didn't fit into the neighbourhood.The children were happen to get anything extra in their lives.I am looking forward to the next part of the tale in the sequel.

Loved this book. The fabulous characters and community sucked me into the whole series. Dorries does an exceptional job of story telling - think along the lines of a combination of Maeve Binchy and Jan Karon. Delightful, yet disturbing in its depiction of sexual abuse set in a dark time for the Catholic Church in regards to its policy regarding unwed mothers.The first in the series - The Four Streets - introduces some of the main characters and their backgrounds in a short-story fashion, and then throws them all together in their community where they end up living the ups and downs of life together.

I was highly disappointed in this book after I had read all 3 of the Lovely Lane books and thoroughly enjoyed them. in The Four Streets at first the same irish/catholic humour had me laughing out loud just as the Lovely Lane books had. But once the violent rape, paedophilia, and child abuse set in I couldn't continue with the book. I realise that these things were very real in certain communities, but I don't wish to read about it in so much detail.Edit: I did finish the book, and despite all the disturbing events it was a great read and I've bought the next one. I will change my rating from 1 star to 3.

Like some of the other reviewers on here, I bought this book, which is the first book in a trilogy, because it was cheap and I thought I would get around to reading it at some point. I knew who Nadine Dorries was, but had never read any of her books before.I started this book on a Thursday and found it so compelling I could not put it down. I read it in a day and swiftly read the other two books in the trilogy over the next two days. It has been a long time since I have read a story that has affected me so deeply and still has me thinking about it days after finishing it.I started reading this thinking it would just be about families living in a street in Liverpool in the 1950s and to start with it was. Nadine Dorries has a way of vividly describing everything so you can picture what everything looks like so easily. You sympathised with the women and their lot, a baby every year, living on a hand-to-mouth existence, where their husbands went down to the docks every day without the guarantee of any work and I was enjoying reading about their day-to-day lives when suddenly, halfway through the book, everything changed and it suddenly went really dark. I have to confess that if I had known what was going to happen in the book I probably would never have read it, but even though I found it really disturbing and upsetting, I am glad I continued and finished this book and the next two in the series.This is an amazing read and although it covers a difficult subject matter, it does it very well and I cannot recommend it enough.

Commence with THE FOUR STREETS and then you will not be able to resist reading the next one HIDE HER NAME, then you honestly will not be able to resist the next one BALLYMARE ROAD and then COMING HOME TO THE FOUR STREETS. These 4 books are the best I have ever read and I highly recommend them, the community spirit and love amongst the parents and children, heartache, murder, hardship, and abuse everything is included in these 4 books. All you want to do is hear how their lives turn out.

The positive reviews of this book are incomprehensible to me. Yes the author has researched 1950s Liverpool like, but that alone does not make a good story. The characters are not the remotest bit likeable and the story turgid. I hate to not finish a book that I have started and this book was a joyless task.

This is the first Nadine Dorries book I have ever read and I enjoyed it so much that I bought the next one in the series so that I could start it the minute I finished this one. For some reason I tend to read a lot of books set in Liverpool but refreshingly this one doesn't contain all the usual constant references to Liverpool which most authors seem to think they have to include.It is easy to read and I was surprised as it did contain a shock element concerning the Priest which I wasn't expecting and although I didn't enjoy reading these bits, I can see that these events have shaped the story. As I have now started reading the second book in the trilogy, the disturbing events from this book are even more relevant as the story wouldn't have taken the same direction.Overall, it is the usual story of a close knit neighbourhood struggling to make ends meet but it does have a twist which makes it a bit different to the norm and I really enjoyed it. I am only at the beginning of book 2 and have already purchased book 3 and I just hope they live up to the same enjoyable read as this book.

I downloaded this book on the strength of so many positive reviews and the fact that I fancied a change of genre from my usual thriller/crime choices. It sat on my Kindle for quite a while until a couple of days ago I decided to give it a go.I found the style easy to get into and found her writing both descriptive and thought provoking. Basically it is a simple book, telling the story of Irish immigrants who having bravely left their homeland in search of a better life, have settled in Liverpool, where work on the docks was plentiful (if hard) in the 1950's.There is no "clever, exciting" plot to this book, instead it tells the story of the day to day living of the families living in the `four streets', a run down area, where the large catholic families struggle to survive - but where the sense of community is strong and constant.For me, the book was running along smoothly until about half way through when child abuse comes into play. I have to say that in a way, this spoiled the story for me. Perhaps that is because for me this book was a step back from the books I usually read, which are thrillers and crime. Once the child abuse was introduced the book changed for me, it became neither one thing or another - neither a pleasant story of times gone by or an exciting thriller/whodunit story.But nevertheless I did enjoy the writing style and the interaction of the families and so I give it three stars.