Kristin Hannah’s
historical fiction novels have become a “must read” for me as they come
out. I was very excited to read The Four
Winds as part of the Brenda Novak Book Club – 2021 Reading Challenge. She had a wonderful interview with Kristin
Hannah last Thursday the 25th that is available on Facebook. It provides great insight into Hannah’s
writing process and how she came up with the Four Winds. I loved it!
Elsa is a plain,
unhappy, unloved, and unmarried daughter of a prosperous family in Texas in the
1920s. One day she makes herself a red
flapper dress, bobs her hair, and meets her husband. Handsome Rafe has many dreams but settles
down to raise a family with Elsa. As
the depression and then the Dust Bowl hit, the Martinelli family is hit with
many difficult choices. What will they
do to survive?
I loved the vivid
portrait that Hannah painted of the Dust Bowl and the depression. The very hard choices that people had to make
for their family survival were devastating.
The ecological destruction wrought by the Dust Bowl helped to bring in
new conservation practices that are still used to this day. The travel from the shattered plains to California
to then be treated like dirt was also heartbreaking. People that proudly had their own farms or
owned their own businesses were treated like trash and forced to live in tent
cities. The novel really humanized the
situation.
I LOVED the
characters in this novel. Elsa is a woman
who had difficulty in self-confidence, but through the love of her children,
she was able to work her hardest to survive.
I in particular loved her relationship with her in-laws and how they became
her real parents. I also loved the often-angry
relationship she had with her 13-year-old daughter Loreda. It rang as a true mother daughter relationship. I loved that Elsa was doing her best, even
when Loreda didn’t see it.
I don’t want to
ruin this book experience for others so I will not get further into the
plot. Like Hannah’s past few novels, I flew
through this one and couldn’t put it down.
Tears were shed and emotions were felt.
I loved this novel.
Favorite Quotes:
“Hope is a coin I
carry: an American penny, given to me by
a man I came to love.”
“Passion is a thunderstorm,
there and gone.”
“Elsa hadn’t known
until right then how much difference a friend could make. How one person could lift your spirit just
enough to keep you upright.”
“Poverty was a
soul-crushing thing. A cave that
tightened around you, its pinprick of light closing a little more at the end of
each desperate, unchanged day.”
“Life went on,
even in the hardest of times.”
Overall, The Four
Winds is a gripping story that vividly paints the devastation caused by the Great
Depression and the Dust Bowl.
Book Source: Purchased from Amazon.com
Good to hear this one is great like her others! It's on my list.
ReplyDeleteThose quotes are amazing. This one's already on my TBR list. Glad to know you liked it so much. :)
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