Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

38 reviews

astoriareader's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

SYNOPSIS:

• It is the 1920s in a small farming community in the Texas Panhandle. Elsa Martinelli grew up in a wealthy family, who never appreciated her & make her feel hard to love. At age 25, she hooks up with Rafe, and she winds up pregnant. They get married, and she moves in with Rafe and his parents, Rosa and Tony, on their farm. 
• Fast forward, it is 1930s. Along the stock market crash & The Great Depression, there are also several years of drought and The Dust Bowl. Elsa has two kids now, Ant & Lareda, and with no end in sight to the dust storms, Elsa abandon their home and flee to California where they hope work and a better life await. The book details what happens when the family arrives in California. 

MY THOUGHTS

• As my first read of 2024, I wanted to start off with a book by one of my favorite authors. This marks the fourth book I’ve read by Hannah, with the others being: The Great Alone, The Women, The Nightingale.
• Hannah is an expert at character development & writing strong female characters. I always learn something when reading her historical fictions. In this one, I learned a lot that I didn’t know about the Dust Bowl & migrants.
• I thoroughly enjoyed the bonds that develop among the characters in the book, and the imagery and vivid descriptions of the surroundings were also very well done.
• It is definitely a sweeping story, and it is a hard one to read.
• My only complaint about the book is all the characters were white, and I would have enjoyed different perspectives about the experiences of BIPOC folks.
• Kudos to Hannah for clearly spending a lot of time researching the era & the topics covered in the book.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️historical fiction with strong women as main characters. time period: Dust Bowl.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Death of parent, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Pregnancy, Grief, Animal death, Police brutality, and Violence

Minor: Chronic illness

sarahfeller's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Blood, Cursing, Abandonment, Pregnancy, Sexism, Alcoholism, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Alcohol, Bullying, Violence, Child death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Toxic relationship, Death, Grief, Medical content, Police brutality, Excrement, and Miscarriage

baraya's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gun violence, Death, Abandonment, Miscarriage, Animal death, Pregnancy, and Violence

zumpers's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Abandonment, Grief, Death, Animal death, Classism, Pregnancy, and Sexual content

passionatereader78's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is an emotional story. A historical fiction. It's about a challenging lifestyle during a horrible time in history. Elsa is a frail woman or at least thats what her parents have beaten into her. She will never marry, have children, or have a job. At age twenty-five, Elsa starts to rebel against what she's been told. She meets Rafe and gets pregnant. They get married and live with his family on their farm. Elsa's happiness is short lived. When the dust storms take over Texas, Elsa has to decide how to save her family. Do they stay in Texas and fight for their land or do they head to California (The land of milk and honey)not knowing what waits for them? The relationship between Elsa and Loreda(Elsa's daughter)is one filled with turmoil. They love each other and want what's best for their family. They both have different ideas of how to get it. I enjoyed the writing on both sides of their relationship. I thought Elsa was doing what she thought was best from her past experiences and Lareda is young and full of life. She's ready to fight injustice not realizing what she will have to sacrifice to get what she wants. Laredo is whiny at times and I  would have liked about fifty to a hundred pages less. I  don't think we needed everything that was written. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, and Body shaming

Moderate: Alcoholism, Abandonment, Child death, and Animal death

Minor: Medical trauma, Medical content, Police brutality, and Sexual content

taylorjones118's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Abandonment, Gun violence, Child death, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Classism, Animal death, and Violence

abbasaurusrex's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This was my first Kristin Hannah. I saw someone describe the author’s books as the Hallmark movies of historical fiction and now, having finished this, I can confirm that is accurate. Equal parts trauma porn and pearl clutching, this book just did not strike the right chords for me. I appreciated the view into a particular place and time in history that I knew little about, but found it a bit overdone, as it seems like the author is trying to address every single hardship of the Dust Bowl farmers/migrant workers through a single family’s experience. By the end of the book I almost felt sorry for the characters, not as victims of history, but as victims of the author. I just don’t enjoy watching people get dumped on, no matter how “historically accurate” the author might claim the events to be. The character development also didn’t hit. I found all of the characters to be a bit one-note and inconsistent, and their “development” (if you can call it that) seemed forced and incomplete. It’s almost like the author said, “I wanna write about the Dust Bowl,” instead of saying “here are some themes I want to explore, and I think the Dust Bowl and this particular family is the appropriate context in which to examine those themes.” She somehow manages to do too much and too little at the same time. Finally, there is not a single person of color in the narrative. I would have appreciated a more diverse perspective for a book that tries to tackle such a massive part of US history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Grief, Xenophobia, Classism, and Sexism

Moderate: Miscarriage, Police brutality, Violence, and Child death

Minor: Pregnancy and Deportation

stephtoriz's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

I liked it a lot, it was heartbreaking. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Animal death, Abandonment, and Death

Moderate: Classism, Violence, Pregnancy, Grief, and Misogyny

franklola's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Sexism, Chronic illness, Bullying, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Classism, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Physical abuse, Confinement, Death, Abandonment, Animal death, and Child death

tragicdramatic23's review

challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy and Gun violence

Moderate: Abandonment