Reviews

The Gardins of Edin by Rosey Lee

emilyskeels's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

elliehojreads's review

4.0

Brief Synopsis: When the bonds in their family begin to fray, four Black women fight to preserve their legacy, heal their wounds, and move forward together in this heartwarming contemporary debut novel with loose parallels to beloved women from the Bible.

Things I liked:
• The women were loosely based off of Bible characters and I liked how they were portrayed in the story!
• It truly was a feel-good story and had a lot of happy elements but also deep and hard ones too.

Things I didn't like:
• It was a pretty normal story and I was bored at times. Quite. a few times I considered DNFing.

My rating: 3.5/5 stars

shannanh's review

4.0

This was a new author to me, and this was such a delightful story full of family, faith and forgiveness.  These characters took me on such an emotional ride, and I had a hard time putting this book down.  This book shows the strengths of Black women.  This was a new author to me, and It won't be my last time reading a book from this author.  It was such an enjoyable page turner and the perfect story for a faith based movie.  

teewilliams's review

5.0

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a contemporary novel. This story captured me from the description to the final sweet moment.

We follow the journey of four women who have been hurt by grief in their family. They each have to forge their path to forgiveness, love and acceptance.

The sister Martha and Mary were my favorite characters to follow. Martha was the older and annoying sister. To see her faith and acceptance grow was beautiful. Mary struggled with being anxiety and had a traumatic past and present. I rooted for her to find her voice and when she did, she did not disappoint.

Ruth had been married into the family (twice) similar to Ruth in the Bible. She wore the weight of responsibility and she wore it well while dealing with her own grief. My heart long for her mistreatment within the family.

Naomi was the sweetest and I’m so glad she got her happy ending

whatshereads727's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

 

This is the story of four black women within a family who fight to preserve their legacies, heal wounds from the past, and move forward together in this debut novel. 

The family has a multimillion-dollar peanut business in Georgia and it is currently being run by Ruth after her husband Beau died. She feels out of place and wants to be close to the other women in the family. She wants to be understood and appreciated for her role in the family as well as her exceptional running of the business. Her sisters Mary and Martha have unfounded mistrust of Ruth and they look for ways to undermine Ruth’s authority. Naomi the matriarch of the family has supported Ruth and plays the peacemaker within the group.  This story ventures into the lost family, conditional love and criticism, diversity within families, sibling rivalry, and more. 

This is a Southern story with many complexities. The four women try to hold onto their identities and lives while finding peace and holding onto one another for support and love. 

 

This is a family drama that kept me turning the pages for sure. I enjoyed the women and their stories. I would recommend this book to everyone.