THE FOUR WINDS

Tiefer Weltschmerz, für die Vergangenheit und die Gegenwart Gleiche Gefühle überschütten mich, wie wenn ich über Vegetarismus nachdenke. Wut. Schmerzvoll weiterzulesen, Ich will nicht mehr und möchte gleichzeitig weiterlesen. In A Little Life my heart was breaking for Jude. In The Four Winds it feels like a needle is constantly peeking its way through my heart. A never-ending ache for the people, the story, Elsa and all the women out there who are brave soldiers just like her. This book showed me in vivid detail what the Great Depression was, how people fought and were fought against by their people, how love and strength are the only things that stop us from collapsing and also how the hardest times bring you to your truest self. And even though you can't see it from the inside, the people around you see it. This book showed me resilience in women, mothers, daughters and sons (that I haven't seen before), when every step you take wants to break you down. The description "it breaks you at the end" wouldn't be right (at least not for me), it breaks you from beginning to end. (Maybe that's the reason why I didn't cry more in the end than in the middle or the beginning.) It feels like I can finally breathe again after closing this book. Das ist definitiv nicht das letzte Kristin Hannah Buch, das ich gelesen habe.

I understand why it took so long for the author to put this book together, the historical research took up a lot of time but was worth the wait. Elsa is one of the strongest characters, a resilient survivor, who does everything for her family. Her fight begins on page one and doesn’t stop until the last page. In The Four Winds, you find everything, a deeply moving plot, strong characters and a lesson in American history.

Kristin Hannah never fails to teach her readers about important periods in time! The Four Winds was a hard book to get through with its very honest topics and the hard times people living during the Great Depression had to go through. But it also taught me a lot about history, and I enjoyed following the journey of Elsa, who was definitely not the "perfect" protagonist many people would love - but that's what I loved about her. I have read several of Hannah's book and this was not one of my favourites, but I definitely have no regrets about buying it and reading it, as I just love her style of writing and how relatable her characters are.

This book reminded me of the one time I stayed in Gold Point, Nevada. A ghosttown in the middle of nowhere. I think I only stayed for two or three days. It was great, but it was also very dusty. There was no way to get rid of the dust and I would have taken a shower every other hour, if I'd had the chance. Also, since it's in the desert, you have to go a very long way to get food and everything else you might need. So living in the Dust Bowl era must have been extremely hard.  I felt really, really bad for Elsa and her family and I really wanted to love this story. But this book was so depressing. I understand that's probably just the way life was for a lot of people and this wasn't my first sad/depressing book I read, but this one was different. It made me very uncomfortable and I was highly frustrated with some of the decisions Elsa made. And the ending just didn't work for me at all. After everything we've been through this is how the story ends?!  This was my first book by Kristin Hannah. It wasn't bad, I enjoyed her writing style and certain parts of the story, but like I said, it just was depressing.