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A review by keeshdiesel91
The House in the Orchard by Elizabeth Brooks
4.0
RATING: 3.75 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
After initially reading this book, I can understand the low ratings from other GR users. It is slow-paced, the characters seem lousy and one-dimensional, and patriarchal views and misogyny is at all time high.
HOWEVER, despite these flaws, this book is almost worthy of being a 4-star read. Throughout this book, I highlighted certain areas that stood out to me, although at the time I couldn't quite understand why. But once I revisited my highlights, I realized that this book was weaved pretty well.
For one, the story is told through a 13 (almost 14) year old's diary, chronicling her life after her parents die and her brother is off living his life in Cambridge, studying to become a doctor. I think what I found myself losing track of, was the fact that this is a diary ... by a preteen. I'm sure many of us have journaled or kept diaries while growing up. If we were to go back and read our diaries/journals, would our diaries honestly flow as well as Maude's diary did? A: NO. Even when I journal today, I never spell out all the events and details and conversations and even outside text/letters I've sent or received from other as well as Maude did. Why does this matter? Because it tells me that this girl is trying to sound cohesive -- for a reason.
Second, we are getting Maude's perspective of how things went down via journal. How do we know that what she claims happened on a certain day of a certain month at a certain time in fact really happened? Makes me wonder if she wants us to believe a certain narrative as true, so any other perspective is seen as dishonest. Why are we wiling to believe her so easily? Is it because we believe she is writing things down fresh in her memory? Because she has no reason to lie? As we see from the climax of this book *no spoilers from me* SHE HAS PLENTY TO HIDE. Further, she has plenty reason to want to paint the narrative in a certain light.
What helps this story is that Maude and her brother are not people we want to root for. But we, the readers, want to take pity (no matter how nominal an amount) towards 13-year old Maude because 1) she's lost her parents, 2) there's evidence that even when her parents were alive, she didn't get the emotional care and support that a young girl would ordinarily need; 3) her brother is 9 years older and is living his own life and *seemingly* forgetting about her; 4) she's living with some strange woman whom her relatives distrust, despite placing her within this woman's care; 5) she is a young woman coming up during a time when educated girls and women were frowned upon, and 6) she is extremely lonely. But that is what makes this book so great -- because despite the author's way of trying to suck us into this world of pity for Maude... we eventually realize that Maude may not been as pitiful as she seemed. In fact, the readers probably should have directed their empathy and/or sympathy elsewhere.
After initially reading this book, I can understand the low ratings from other GR users. It is slow-paced, the characters seem lousy and one-dimensional, and patriarchal views and misogyny is at all time high.
HOWEVER, despite these flaws, this book is almost worthy of being a 4-star read. Throughout this book, I highlighted certain areas that stood out to me, although at the time I couldn't quite understand why. But once I revisited my highlights, I realized that this book was weaved pretty well.
For one, the story is told through a 13 (almost 14) year old's diary, chronicling her life after her parents die and her brother is off living his life in Cambridge, studying to become a doctor. I think what I found myself losing track of, was the fact that this is a diary ... by a preteen. I'm sure many of us have journaled or kept diaries while growing up. If we were to go back and read our diaries/journals, would our diaries honestly flow as well as Maude's diary did? A: NO. Even when I journal today, I never spell out all the events and details and conversations and even outside text/letters I've sent or received from other as well as Maude did. Why does this matter? Because it tells me that this girl is trying to sound cohesive -- for a reason.
Second, we are getting Maude's perspective of how things went down via journal. How do we know that what she claims happened on a certain day of a certain month at a certain time in fact really happened? Makes me wonder if she wants us to believe a certain narrative as true, so any other perspective is seen as dishonest. Why are we wiling to believe her so easily? Is it because we believe she is writing things down fresh in her memory? Because she has no reason to lie? As we see from the climax of this book *no spoilers from me* SHE HAS PLENTY TO HIDE. Further, she has plenty reason to want to paint the narrative in a certain light.
What helps this story is that Maude and her brother are not people we want to root for. But we, the readers, want to take pity (no matter how nominal an amount) towards 13-year old Maude because 1) she's lost her parents, 2) there's evidence that even when her parents were alive, she didn't get the emotional care and support that a young girl would ordinarily need; 3) her brother is 9 years older and is living his own life and *seemingly* forgetting about her; 4) she's living with some strange woman whom her relatives distrust, despite placing her within this woman's care; 5) she is a young woman coming up during a time when educated girls and women were frowned upon, and 6) she is extremely lonely. But that is what makes this book so great -- because despite the author's way of trying to suck us into this world of pity for Maude... we eventually realize that Maude may not been as pitiful as she seemed. In fact, the readers probably should have directed their empathy and/or sympathy elsewhere.