2014 Book Review #84: Winter Garden

[jethrien]

Title: The Winter Garden
Author: Kristen Hannah
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Thingummies: 2

Synopsis: Two women try to figure out what the heck is up with their traumatized Russian mother, discover that they're in a Hallmark movie at the last possible second but not early enough to avoid the angel ghost of their dead toddler half-brother.

Thoughts: I actually was fairly involved in this book for the majority of it. Meredith has let her father's business consume her life, to the detriment of her marriage; Nina's wanderlust makes her reluctant to settle down even with a guy who shares her interests. Their mom is an emotionally abusive enigma. In trying to get over their father's death, they try to figure out why exactly their mom is so brittle and withdrawn.

But the last quarter of the book, Mom's melodrama overwhelms that of the daughters. The descriptions of the siege of Leningrad are brutal; Mom's trauma makes sense. (Why their dad loved her doesn't, really--there were some hints at the beginning that she at least treated him with a little bit of affection, but what kind of man would decide to marry a random female POW who doesn't speak his language and is apparently essentially catatonic for the first year he knows her?)

But everything is magically better! Somehow this story totally fixes the (serious, deep) problems both daughters have! And look--[SPOILERS]--somehow they totally accidentally wander into the restaurant owned by Mom's long lost daughter for no apparent reason! Hurray! WTF?

Also, poor Meredith and Nina's dead dad is totally forgotten at the end. Because apparently 50 years of devotion don't count.

Honestly, I think this would have been a much better book if they'd just learned the truth, and then it focused on Mom bonding with the daughters she failed to raise and the daughters fixing the issues caused by that lack of bonding. Instead, magical new family somehow fixes everything because Reasons.

Comments

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Funny, I actually read that this summer when our housemate loaned it to me. I spent the first maybe-half gritting my teeth through the mediocre writing, but eventually it picked up and grabbed me more. But yes, a lot of the insta-resolution makes the Plausible Fairy say "Really?"

Definitely made me want to take that cruise to Alaska, though. And eat borscht and caviar.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I've actually taken the cruise in Alaska. Not exactly that one--we didn't stop in Sitka, but did hit Ketchikan and Skagway. It's a really nice place to cruise--the inside passage isn't as choppy as the open sea, and a lot of the towns are really hard to get to if you're not on a ship. We had a good time.