User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
“The wind picked up, ruffled [Elsa’s] dress. She paused in beating the rug, sweat running down her face…and tented a hand over her eyes. Past the outhouse, a murky, urine-yellow haze burnished the sky. Elsa tilted her sun hat back, stared out at the sickly yellow horizon. Dust storm. The newest scourge of the Great Plains. The sky changed color, turned red-brown. Wind picked up, barreled across the farm from the south. A Russian thistle hit her in the face, tore the skin from her cheek. A tumbleweed spiraled past. A board flew off the chicken coop and cracked into the side of the house…The cows mooed angrily and pushed into each other, pointing their bony butts into the dust storm. Static electricity made their tails stand out. A flotilla of birds flew past them, flapping hard, cawing and squawking, outrunning the dust…”- Kristin Hannah,
The Four Winds This is one of those times I feel like I need to apologize in advance. So I will.
I’m sorry I didn’t like the book everyone else loved. And if you are one of those people who loved this book, I assure you, this is nothing personal.
Before now, I have never read a book by Kristin Hannah. That said, I know her by reputation. She is an extremely prolific author with a vast following. Her super-mega-bestselling novels have been purchased in the millions, along with a like number of tissue boxes. Her books are not simply read, they are cherished; not merely liked, but beloved. When I started
The Four Winds, it was with the knowledge that I was certainly not alone in cracking the cover.
Alas, having finished, I find myself in a lonely position, among the apparent few who did not appreciate it.
When I find myself in such a contrary pose, I typically hesitate. I appreciate the possibility that I missed something, or I read something the wrong way, or that I simply didn’t get it. I am also not the type of person who provides contrary literary opinions simply as a way of seeking attention. Books, after all, are an investment in my time, which is valuable to me. I don’t read them with an eye towards later evisceration. Certainly, I don’t feel any special need to deconstruct popular books and successful authors.
But here we are, nonetheless.
Before I go on, I should add that I am going to be discussing a plot point that happens about one-third of the way into the novel. I don’t think it’s a spoiler, as it’s not structured as a surprise, and it is imperative to actually describing the novel. In any event, consider this a warning.
With that out of the way, a brief summary is in order.
The Four Winds is the story of Elsa Martinelli, a woman of Job-like dimensions upon whom has fallen a hateful set of parents, a no-good husband, an uber-brat of a daughter, and the Great Depression itself. There are moments when it seems as though Elsa’s creator read a book about the Dust Bowl, wrote down every bad thing that ever happened to anybody, and then forced them all upon this one indomitable woman. Elsa endures this all with fortitude, equanimity, and grace, and the only real problem with Hannah’s presentation is that it felt – to me – entirely false.
To begin, I found the characters extremely simplistic. Hannah paints in bold lines, and just about everyone in this story is a type, whether it’s the Italian-Catholic mother-in-law or the handsome young labor organizer. Take, for instance, Elsa’s mom, who is so pointedly hateful she makes Cinderella’s stepmother appear reasonable. Her dad, somehow, is even worse, because he adds a bit of physical violence to his aggressive unpleasantness. The hinge of Elsa’s life is a man named Rafe, about whom we know only two things: he is Italian, and he is good looking. Nevertheless, Elsa loves him completely and relentlessly. The heart has its reasons, I suppose. And don’t get me started on Loreda, Elsa’s daughter, who apparently joined a New Deal program by which she is paid by the eye roll. Like, I get that’s she supposed to be a teenager. But also, it’s the Great Depression.
While the characters did not work for me, I understand that this is not an objective critique. Many fine tales rely on archetypes. Not every book need be an intense, Dostoevsky-like psychological excavation of the human soul. Still, the types in
The Four Winds were, in my opinion, extremely bland.
Furthermore, Hannah employs a tell-not-show form of storytelling. Rather than carefully setting up a scene, letting that scene play out, and then observing the consequences,
The Four Winds races pell-mell from one incident to the next. While this creates a blistering pace, it also builds zero tension, drama, or stakes. It is telling that the highpoints occur when Hannah slows down and simply describes the land. Her descriptions of the dust storms, for instance, are quite good.
I will give but one example, lest I belabor the issue. At one point, shortly after Elsa has hit the road for California, she is confronted by a vagrant intent on robbing her. The man actually grips Elsa’s throat, implying lethal danger. Then, Loreda appears with a shotgun, and the man runs off.
All of this – setup, execution, aftermath – occurs in
less than
two pages. Let me repeat: a life-or-death situation that arises and disappears in – according to my quick count – just 264 words. Then, Hannah caps off her “set piece” with this conclusion: “They would be changed by this, all three of them.”
By my recollection, this incident is never referenced again.
Once more, Hannah’s style is not illegitimate storytelling. Authors ask you to accept things as true all the time. But the
The Four Winds goes too far, asking me to take just about everything – from Elsa’s love to Loreda’s badass turn – on faith. For me, I need a reason to believe. I need some demonstrations about the facts underlying the conclusions I am given.
This is especially true with regard to the countless moments when Hannah wanted me reaching for my hankie. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with emotional manipulation in a novel. Indeed, if a writer is not trying to manipulate my emotions – that is, if the writer is not trying to make me feel something – then there is no point reading what they have written. Here, though, being
told that something sad has happened is not the same as
feeling sad about it.
Perhaps the biggest problem I had with
The Four Winds is that once Elsa sets off for California, it follows
The Grapes of Wrath almost beat for beat. Long drive across the desert: check. Mean store owners: check. Squatter’s camp full of helpful common folk: check. A flood: check. Unfortunately, while
The Grapes of Wrath felt journalistic in its detail,
The Four Winds feels like a superficial and too-glossy copycat. Whereas John Steinbeck marinated you in detail and context, Hannah simplifies everything to good versus evil. Just about everyone Elsa meets in California, from a nurse who won’t help a dying woman, to a school that doesn’t want to teach Okies, is a cartoonishly villainous monster. None of these deficits are helped by leadenly expository dialogue that feels like the novelization of a U.S. history textbook for elementary schoolers. Okay, that might be a bit too harsh, but there was never a moment when I found myself thinking:
this is definitely what it's like when two human beings converse.
If there is a saving grace in
The Four Winds, it is Elsa herself. I give Hannah credit for trying something a bit ambitious, by centering her epic on a wallflower. Elsa’s arc, from shrinking violet to something more, gives this book its spine. There were times, I should add, that I totally believed in Elsa’s journey. The problem is that the world around her, and the people in it, all struck me as curiously lifeless cutouts. Reading this was like walking onto a studio backlot of a western town, where the facades of the buildings give the impression of a tactile reality. Upon closer inspection, though, came the realization that behind each façade, there is very little of substance.
Rating: really liked it
A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself.
It sounds like motherhood to me.
Kristin Hannah's books seem to get pigeonholed as "women's fiction", whatever that means, but the three books I've read from her - The Nightingale, The Great Alone, and this one - have all been, for me, nothing short of survival stories.
The theme of women surviving impossible times runs through all three of the books I've read by Hannah. She often focuses on cross-generational bonds, between older and younger women who usually have complex relationships with one another. The Nightingale focused on the women left fighting their own war at home in France during the German occupation. The Great Alone follows a mother and daughter into the Alaskan wilderness, as they fight off threats from outside and within their small cabin.
The Four Winds is set during dust bowl era Texas, and focuses on Elsa Martinelli and her daughter as they try to survive the complete destruction of life as they knew it.
You know, before reading this book, I thought I understood what happened during the dust bowl and the Great Depression. I read The Grapes of Wrath some years ago and we skimmed over it in school. But clearly I did not appreciate the horrors that took place, especially in the dust-ravaged lands of Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. I did not know, or did not remember, that people slept in gas masks or else woke with their eyes crusted shut and their throats caked in dirt. I did not know how many died from dust pneumonia.
In this book, Elsa has carved out a piece of paradise for herself-- a loving family, a land to farm and be proud of, and a mother-in-law whose initial suspicion quickly turns to affection. Then the land turns on them. Everything dies. There's no food to feed themselves, never mind the few animals they need to keep their farm going. And then Elsa's son becomes gravely ill, and she must decide whether to stick it out and hope for an end to this hell, or leave on a perilous journey west to California.
It's just a real great story about a family trying to survive. I loved Elsa immediately, her fire and her weaknesses, and I wanted so badly for her to get her family to safety. The trials never stop, though, and after doing a bit more outside reading on the dust bowl, I can see there was nothing remarkable about Elsa's story, even if, to me, it sounds completely outrageous.
The Four Winds is not a short book, but I ate it up. I was so absorbed in the story that I felt annoyed every time real life disturbed my reading. This book just cemented Kristin Hannah as a must-read author for me.
Rating: really liked it
My choice for best historical fiction at Goodreads choice awards 2022! I think my eyes are bleeding. They cried themselves to death. They cannot function properly anymore.
My heart hurts. It is already broken. My tears drained. I cannot gather my emotions anymore because they’re at everywhere. This is real heart ripping, soul crushing and truly earth shattering, shaking you to the core reading experience!
Ms. Hannah did it again! She shattered my soul in tiny pieces and captured my heart as like she did with Nightingale, Great Alone, Firefly Lane. I turned into a human mash and I don’t know how long I find the strength to turn back to my normal self!
This book takes place in 1930’s Texas: the time of Dust Bowl, Stock Market Crash, the very same time of people who suffer from poverty, homelessness, despair, starvation. They lost their hopes and own paths, struggling, grief stricken, witnessing to lose everything they’d worked for! These are toughest times to test people’s patience and survival skills.
Elsa Martinelli has to make a choice like her neighbors do: she may stay with her two kids and fight for her land or go west to settle in California for better life opportunities.
Her life can never be defined as a fairytale. Till her childhood times she has been forced to be a survivor, a fighter. She fought with serious illness, she worked hard to earn love of her parents who never respected or accepted who she is.
And after getting pregnant she was forced to marry a man she didn’t love. But with her marriage, she earned a real family: devoted support of in-laws: Rose and Tony. For the first time she realized how to be loved from deep in your heart.
Once upon a time, she was a loner, introverted bookworm girl but times have changed, everything became tougher. The circumstances pushed her grown up faster and wear her big girl pants to adjust the new reality of her new life.
So she raises from her ashes by turning herself a hard working farmer and a great mother. She can do anything for the love of her kids. Maybe the wrong thought patterns she inherited from her judgmental parents made her think she was not strong woman but she couldn’t be so wrong. She is tough, brave, kind hearted and a true fighter. It’s impossible not to respect and love her. She is one of the best characters Ms. Hannah created.
I don’t want to give much spoiler not to ruin your reading experience but I have to say, this is not easy, soft journey for you. It will shake you, break you, hurt you, slap you, crash you. It’s so effective, tremendously heartbreaking because it’s honest and realistic. The tragedies people face, the despair, grief, hunger, powerlessness test their mental and physical strength.
It’s poetic, shocking, heart wrenching, tear jerking, poignant!
I have no words left. I am human shell right now. This book took away all the words from my mouth. I can only say I loved it so much even though it hurt me a lot.
Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing another fantastic Kristin Hannah’s book’s arc copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.
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Rating: really liked it
Kristin Hannah novels are so hit and miss for me. For instance, I absolutely loved Night Road...it's probably one of my all-time favorite books. Yet, I really fecking hated the The Nightingale.
And here's why...
Every time I read Hannah's historical fiction, I end up feeling as though she researches like a mad woman, jots down
every tragedy she can find during that time period, and then destroys her main character by making her suffer through
every. single. calamity.It's too much.
This book was so horribly depressing and was so full of misery and death (animals included...it was bad, friends), that I couldn't wait for it to end. I didn't care for any of the characters and felt zero enjoyment while reading this. Yes, it was well-written, and yes, Ms. Hannah knows how to ratchet up the tension...but man, balance is a good thing. The constant, over-the-top darkness was overwhelming.
The conclusion was
completely predictable and emotionally manipulative. I knew I was supposed to break down into devastated tears, but instead, I just let out a huge sigh and rolled my eyes. Does that count? I think I just need to stick to her contemporary books and skip the historical options.
I have found myself wondering if this book had been released at a different time, instead of a immediately following a worldwide pandemic and financial devastation for so many, if I might have liked it more. It's possible. Right now, it simply doesn't "play nicely" with my state of mind, and really, timing is everything.
I'm once again in the minority here, so just go ahead and read it...you know you want to.
TRIGGER WARNING: CONSTANT ANIMAL SUFFERING AND DEATH2.5 starsAvailable February 2, 2021Despite my less than enthusiastic review, I'd like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my review copy.
Rating: really liked it
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️
Forgive my indulgence by starting this review on a personal note, but as a child, my parents had a saying - “Never judge a person’s life story by the chapter you find them in”. It was said with kindness and concern for others’ misfortunes, and never was this more pertinent than in The Four Winds!
1930’s Texas, the dust bowl, the stock market crash, and for the farmers across The Great Plains, came burning winds that destroyed everything in their path, and a drought so fierce that it left wheat fields so severely blasted by heat that they couldn’t be harvested, the collapse of the economy - everything that nature and life could throw at these poor unfortunate people was thrown, and life as they knew it was gone.
It is against this backdrop that we meet Elsa Martinelli, on the face of it an unremarkable woman, struggling with the question, should she stay on the home farm and keep struggling, waiting for the rains that never come, this is an area she has known her whole life, or should she take her two children and try her luck out West? Well, the decision Elsa takes, turns this unremarkable woman into one to be proud of, someone who shows us that in adversity, we can reveal the warrior who’s been hiding within.
The hardship, the sheer grinding poverty and its effects, are hard to witness here, in addition, the prejudice shown to these people who were just trying to put food on the table for their families, was shameful. Here we discovered others who were better off, who hadn’t known a day’s hardship in their lives, doing their best to grind these poor unfortunate people’s pride into the gutter - that’s if they still had any pride left to grind, after all that they’d suffered. However, the overriding message that comes across is that human beings can survive against all the odds, and that love for one’s family survives everything.
This is an epic read that is undoubtedly heartbreaking, but it’s stunning, and so beautifully written that I will take Elsa Martinelli with me in my heart for some time to come. Don’t miss this one!
*I was invited to read The Four Winds by the publisher and have given an honest unbiased review in exchange *
Rating: really liked it
2.49863 stars. I’m sorry. But what wassss this that I just read??? This was legit Kristin Hannah on crack...the most depressing crack everrrr.
Listen- I love me a good cry. I rocked in a corner weeping after finishing The Nightingale for daysss. But this? The Four Winds was literally a master class in taking every bleak and sad and god awful thing that could possibly happen to you, and throwing it all in a book and hoping and praying that it would make you weep. It did not.
Set during The Great Depression in Texas, the story did in fact open my eyes to things I truly didn’t know or understand. I do have to admit that this piece of history was not ever taught to these depths and it was quite enraging and I was flabbergasted at how wretched our country was during this time period. Alas- that is really the only positive thing I have to say about this book.
The main character and mother, Elsa was basically a walking talking Eeyore. Good lord. How many times can someone say “but I’m not pretty”?!? Even well into her 30s and 40s she was yammering about her ugliness. Get a grip woman! Grow up! She was meek, whiny, a pessimist, had zero backbone and was just not someone I could root for. Her son Ant- I’ll give him a pass. He was sweet. The daughter Loreda needed to be blown away in a dust storm. She was legit every mother’s greatest fear when raising a daughter. She was just an awful creature that just needed to always get her way, and when she did...she still complained. Blah. The men in this story. Whatever. One was a nobody disaster mess that was basically given no depth and the other was painted as the bad boy heroine that also was given no depth. The only redeeming characters were the grandparents Tony and Rose.
So back to the bleakness and depressing plot lines...
In one book you have: verbally, emotionally and physically abusive parents, teenage pregnancy, homelessness, abandonment, relationship strife, mother/daughter strife, more emotional abuse, more abandonment, dust storms x 8273882 (why so many? We got the point after the first 75), poverty, hunger, The Great Depression, homelessness again, more poverty, more hunger, more emotional abuse, a giant flood, more homelessness, abuse, more emotional torment, child loss, death, more poverty, more death. This is not an exaggeration. By the end of this book I was just numb and unfazed. Speaking of the end...
The ending was trash. I minused 1.5 stars simply bc of the ending. The super obvious attempt to make the reader cry only made me cringe and dry heave a bit. Super spoiler ahead-
The fact that little miss dormouse Elsa finally decides to speak and be a normal human in the last five pages, only to end up being shot is RIDICULOUS. And not only that- but the hospital scene...I’m still cringing. The woman was shot once, the doctors can do nothing to help her bc the olden time bullet that was used apparently shattered and minced her insides and her heart is suddenly now not working (but it had no prob working when she was picking cotton for 12 hours a day and malnourished), but alas Elsa wakes up from her death bed to utter her goodbyes. It was like the movie Stepmom...but not sad. And then she croaks. And then in the epilogue the shitty daughter finally now loves her mom and talks about how brave she always was?!? Ummm what? Sister- all you did the entire book was tell your mother that she was a dipshit. Whatever.
This was an epic disappointment. It felt rushed, embellished, silly and just not wrought in true and genuine emotion. Ugh.
Rating: really liked it
Four things you’ll want to do after finishing The Four Winds:
1. Drink a ginormous glass of water. Kristin Hannah has created such a vivid portrait of the American Dust Bowl in the 1930s that you can almost feel the dirt in the back of your throat. It’s hard to imagine the ground being so dry and the weather so ferocious that you could catch dust pneumonia, yet you’ll believe it after only a few pages.
2. Look up photos of the farmers and migrants of the era. You can probably close your eyes and easily picture the famous “Migrant Mother” portrait taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936, but it took me reading this book to really grasp the helplessness of her situation.
3. Hug your mom. The relationships between our heroine Elsa and the women above and below her on her family tree are touching and unexpected. The ties that bind them together are at turns solid as the ground beneath them or frail as the animals on their land.
4. Read everything Kristin Hannah has ever written. I’m one of the rare souls who didn’t adore The Nightingale, but The Four Winds has solidified her “must read” author status with me once and for all.
I’m grateful to St. Martin’s Press and Ms. Hannah for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy via NetGalley.
Blog: www.confettibookshelf.com
Rating: really liked it
4.5 stars
“Hope is a coin I carry: an American penny, given to me by a man I came to love. There were times in my journey when I felt as if that penny and the hope it represented were the only things that kept me going.”
Kristin Hannah has written a number of novels and I’ve read several. In my view, her strength lies in historical fiction. This novel depicting the trials of so many people in the Dust Bowl in Texas and other places during the 1930’s, and the Dust Bowl Migration, who endured the horrible effects on their lives, is another example of how she excels in this genre.
Elsa, at twenty three has lived a sheltered life having suffered from rheumatic fever as a young girl, treated as an invalid and outsider by an uncaring family. She reads and she’s restless to live and wants more of a life. She does get another life, but it’s a difficult one filled with heartache, unbearable heat and dust you could taste, and a livelihood with her beautiful and loving in-laws that is in peril. In the midst of the Great Depression on top of all of the natural disasters, she takes her two children to California in hopes of a better life. What she finds there is a harrowing existence of poverty, horrible living conditions and slave like working conditions. But she also finds friendship that she never knew, love that she dreamed of, but never thought possible, and a role in the fight for workers’ rights.
Hannah tells us in a note that Elsa is a fictional character, but she represents the resilience and strength in the wake of seemingly uncontrollable circumstances of so many real people who lived through these times. Like most good historical fiction, reading this had me looking for information about this place and time and these events. Hannah has done justice to these times with characters to care about and a captivating story and a realistic portrayal of this slice of American history. Not quite 5 stars because I felt at times it was a little drawn out, but highly recommended for historical fiction lovers, especially. This is a heartbreaking story that had me in tears in the end, but yet the hope of the penny remained.
I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press through
Edelweiss and NetGalley
Rating: really liked it
This is a hard hitting historical fiction book. This is the third Kristin Hannah book I have read, and this is was not my favorite one. I really enjoyed this book a lot, and it was very well written like all the other Kristin Hannah books. Kristin Hannah books are not for the light hearted because they are hard hitting and goes into the dark parts of the subject the book is covering. This one takes place during the great depression it starts in Texas. I have to say the characters are well developed, but they are strong hearted women that does not takes crap. I loved the characters. This book made me call my Grandmother who is the strongest women I know, and she was born in 1935. I loved books that makes me really think, and I also love when they show us how much the world as changed. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (St. Martin's Press) or author (Kristin Hannah) via NetGalley, so I can give honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.
Rating: really liked it
whenever i think of the dust bowl era, i have traumatic flashbacks of reading
‘the grapes of wrath’ in high school. not the best experience, so ive kind of unintentionally avoided the topic ever since.
but im so glad i decided to give this a chance. i definitely connected more with the writing, the characters, and the overall story in this book.
what really got me was how much i empathised with elsa. im not a mother, but i found it remarkable just how fully i could understand the love she felt for her children and the lengths she would go to provide for them. i even found my eyes misting up on a few occasions. its definitely the great writing and characterisation which made that possible.
this is one more story KH can add to her list of ‘books that will make my readers feel something.’
↠ 4.5 stars
Rating: really liked it
This is epic historical fiction from Kristin Hannah, a harrowing, tough and painful read of one of American history's darkest period, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, the tragedies, poverty, starvation, unemployment, the sacrifices made, set in Texas and California from the early 1920s up to WW2. It is impeccably well researched with all its excruciating details, an era seen through the eyes of a woman, a mother, and her family. The tall Elsinore or 'Elsa' has suffered poor health, is from a wealthy family who make her feel she is never as good as her sisters, never loved, that results in her poor self esteem. So when she receives attention from a younger man, Rafe Martinelli, she ends up pregnant, and despite him being already engaged, they find themselves married.
Elsa finds herself living on a farm, loved and thriving, despite it being a hard life of challenges, getting on well with her in-laws, Tony and Rosa, particularly close to Rosa, with two children, Loreda and Ant. However, living conditions become unbearable, particularly for the farming communities with the Depression, the lack of rain, the never ending drought, the failing crops and the devastating dust storms and their dreadful impact, leading to people scattering in the winds. Despite everything, for obvious reasons Elsa is reluctant to leave until the life threatening conditions worsen considerably, and they move to where it is said is the land of milk and honey, California. In a relentlessly downbeat and bleak narrative, California is far from the promised land, instead they face endless prejudice and injustice.
Elsa is a mother, a strong, courageous and indomitable woman, there is nothing she will not do for her children, the hardest of workers, in a California that exploits, with terrible working conditions and pay. Despite everything, despite the horrors, what shines through is the underlying power of the human spirit, its astonishing capacity to endure the worst of times, the despair, and survive, against all the odds. Hannah's novel speaks to, parallels, and echoes our contemporary realities, the pandemic and its crushing impact, men in power that cannot be trusted, a divided nation, and a future that looks so bleak, offering hope by illustrating people's resilience from the past. As you might well have gathered, this is clearly not the easiest of reads, so heartbreaking, but it is nevertheless powerful, compelling and riveting, of women and their relationships, a book for our times, and a historical education too. Many thanks to Pan Macmillan for an ARC.
Rating: really liked it
Many went west to search for a better life but their American dreams became nightmares by poverty, hardship and greed.
The past few years have been a time for things lost: jobs, homes and food. A man has to fight out there to make a living and women of The Great Plains worked from sun up to sun down too.
When they close their eyes they can still taste the dust.
Millions are out of work and there is a drought. The water is drying up and the sun burns down on all the crops, especially the wheat.
They lose their crops. Dust threatens to bury them all. This is the dust bowl era which has arrived with a vengeance, one of the darkest periods of The Great Depression.
So Elsa Martinelli takes her children West to California where there is lots of work for everyone and a better life, the American Dream.
Every time I open up a Kristin Hannah book and start reading it, I get excited because her books are usually all five star books. I loved The Nightingale. If you love historical fiction, I think you will love her too.
I just loved this book. I fell in love with the characters. My heart went out to Elsa. She grew up feeling unloved and her parents gave her a self image that she was plain and forgotten. But she then meets a farmer and finds happiness with his family. When she moves to California she finds herself and her children in poverty and hunger. Everyone there is prejudiced and they don't welcome migrants there and they call them Okies. Elsa was such a strong female character.
If you aren't a historical fiction fan, I still think you will love it because it was such a great story and it is beautifully written.
I want to thank Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and the author for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Available Now!
Rating: really liked it
This book was
phenomenal. I cried my eyes out so hard, and I did a whole reading vlog dedicated to this book which you can see here: https://youtu.be/t79LsN5elqM
Rating: really liked it
Elsa is a 25 year old woman who is considered an old maid at the age of 25; however, her luck changes when she meets Rafe, they get married, and settle on a farm. Fast forward a decade. Elsa now has two children, Ant and Loreda, but finds herself in the middle of The Great Depression and suffering from a series of back-to-back lackluster farm years. Should she stay on the land she loves, the legacy that she has built for her children, or should she go West to California for more opportunities?
This book was unnecessarily long, but I also thought that this book addressed an issue very near and dear to my heart: the working poor. There are many people who believe that poor people are lazy or somehow are in the situation because of something that they had done. However, there are poor people who work. There are moms who have to wake up at 3 am to work at a bakery while Grandma takes the kids to school, and mom has to pick up the kids from school, people who walk all of their clothes to a laundromat because they don't have access to a washer and dryer, people who work 2 jobs and go to school, always holding their breath that one flat tire, one illness will bring them into bankruptcy. This would be the opposite of lazy.
My favorite part of the book was when Elsa was attending the PTA meeting! That scene....what a classic!
If you really liked this book, I would highly recommend A Fine Balance.
2022 Reading Schedule
Jan Animal Farm
Feb Lord of the Flies
Mar The Da Vinci Code
Apr Of Mice and Men
May Memoirs of a Geisha
Jun Little Women
Jul The Lovely Bones
Aug Charlotte's Web
Sep Life of Pi
Oct Dracula
Nov Gone with the Wind
Dec The Secret Garden
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Rating: really liked it
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I have read five of Ms. Hannah’s novels. I would give the read itself a 3* but the beautiful writing and the incredible research that went into this book definitely earns it a 4* rating.
This book was an incredibly depressing read. I felt so much for the characters that I really had to hold myself back from crying. Particularly when injustice after injustice was endured and things kept going from bad to worse. It made me wonder how much can a person really stand before their spirit is completely broken.
Elsa was born into a family of “means”, however she suffered from a complete lack of love, attention or any kind of affection. Elsa had two sisters who were considered pretty and married at a young age. Elsa’s mother had told her this when she was in her twenties, ”You are unmarriageable, Elsinore, even with all our money and standing. No man of note wants an unattractive wife who looms over him” This last a comment on the fact that she was tall for women then, about six feet tall.
On her 25th birthday she decides to go into town and celebrate. She meets Rafe who finds Elsa interesting and beautiful in her own way. When she tells her parents that she is in love, her parents want to know who the man is. Her father then forces the marraige between Rafe and Elsa.
There are a few good years when Elsa and Rafe are living with the Martinelli’s who have embraced Elsa and their baby daughter Loreda. They are very warm and caring people and Elsa at last feels a part of a family.
Then The Great Depression and the worst drought in the history of the Great Plains hits and it’s a double whammy for the US farmers and workers.
After years of near starvation on the family farm Elsa takes her daughter Loreda and young son Ant west to California. It is said that there is work there and money to be made. However as history has told us, both farmers from the drought stricken “Dust Bowl” and workers from the cities all converge on California looking for jobs. I had hoped that here at last would be a new beginning for Elsa and her children.
It would spoil the story to tell much else about the plot. In comparing Ms. Hannah’s novels, I felt that there was hope and more vibrancy in The Nightingale and The Great Alone. This book felt like just one nightmare to the next. I realize that this is the true history of what the people endured, but it is very hard to read. I kept looking for a silver lining which never seemed to come. Perhaps in her Elsa’s daughter’s generation.
The characters were incredibly well developed and I felt for all of them. The dust storms were so well described I could envision how horrible a twister of dust blowing at 50 mph would be. So forceful that it got between every small crack in the house. In the beginning the beautiful wheat fields were described; how tall, golden and strong the wheat stalks were and went on for acres and acres. She again described some terrible scenes in California when the rains caused flooding in the tent and truck camps set up along the ditches close to the farms. How horrible to have everything you own covered in mud for weeks on end.
As you can see this book did touch me in many ways. I went online to find out more about the drought and “Dust Bowl” and realized how little I had known. This book opened my eyes to the farmers tragedy. I had read much about The Great Depression but not much about the farmer’s plight.
This is a very eye opening novel. I loved the author’s notes in which she addressed the pandemic that we are now going through and hoped that the book would teach us this:
“We’ve gone through bad times before and survived, even thrived. History has shown us the strength and durability of the human spirit. In the end, it is our idealism and our courage and our commitment to one another--what we have in common--that will save us. Now in these dark days, we can look to history, to the legacy of the greatest generation and the story of our own past, and take strength from it.” I hope that we can learn this lesson and pass it on to our children.
This novel is set to publish on February 9, 2021
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.
