jennykoshka 's review for:

The Secret Garden: (penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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I wanted to give this book a 5…so much of it was so perfect for spring and brimming with magic but the really heavy handed “lesson” about positive and negative thoughts really brought it down for me (especially in addition to the racism and ableism). I feel it promotes toxic positivity and lacks nuance and parts were even victim-blaming (I.e. saying that a woman got beat up by her drunk husband because she repeatedly said her husband was a drunken brute…the exact words were that she MADE HIM beat her!!! And had she said nice things he wouldn’t have gotten drunk but got her a new bonnet). It almost feels in the realm of the law of attraction and new age spirituality 🙄

I wish it was just about being out in the garden and the magic of nature because those parts were great but it’s hard to separate those parts from the truly toxic parts. So I’m torn between loving and hating it 😢

Read in tandem with the audiobook narrated by Alison Larkin