REVIEW: The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

 

I've always  like Kristin Hannah - the first book I read by her was The Great Alone, which was fantastic. I've read other books by her since then, and then I picked up this one, which is her most recent release. 

We meet Elsa Wolcott, the protagonist of this novel, in the twenties. She's living in the Dust Bowl with a prosperous family, the oldest girl who hasn't been married yet and had a sickly childhood and got yolked with parents who really didn't love her all that much.  Having said that, she finally feels like she may have a fulfilling life, having met Rafe - the son of Italian immigrant farmers - and having found happiness in books (which she seems to prefer to people). Eventually, they have a family and tend to the land that his parents own, but then the Depression sets in and we see it play out in the Dust Bowl with Elsa and her family. 

While I thought Elsa resilient, I found her to be really frustrating and stubborn at times. SHe has to contend with many, many challenges including supporting her family, picking cotton, and abandonment, but she does so with a close mindedness and inflexibility that I found hard to relate to. The book itself seemed to ready made for a Hollywood production - as if the author was hoping to get a movie deal out of it (especially with the ending - you're going to have to read it to find out). I did really enjoy how Kristin Hannah puts us into the Dust Bowl and how we experience the depression from the perspective of people in Elsa's position. People were, perhaps unsurprisingly, cruel to the migrant workers and viewed them as interlopers who took already limited resources. I learned about how some of the farming issues experienced were as the result of manmade issues, as opposed to naturally occurring issues. 

This wasn't my favorite of Kristin Hannah's books but it's definitely worth the read.