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A review by kgstuckinabook
Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman
5.0
Wildflower Hill truly has it all - racism/discrimination, generational differences, war, love, hate, marriage, divorce, cheating, kidnapping, and eventually death. And to think this is what almost stopped me from even reading the book. One would think all of these themes would be unable to fit together in one book, but Freeman does it quite wonderfully. Every few chapters she changes the narrator, so the reader gets a chance to see both Bettie's story all those years ago, and then Emma's story after Bettie, her grandmother, has passed away. I honestly loved the first few pages when young, 11 year old Emma and Bettie are together, and Bettie tells her that she has something for her, but only when she is done being a Ballerina, something that Emma thinks she will never be done with. Seeing the characters together was a great way to start off the book, that only connects the characters throughout the rest of the story using the themes I have described above.
We find Bettie unwed, and yet pregnant - losing everything within chapters, from her job and friends to her family and the baby's father, Henry. He wants nothing to do with her because he is married and cannot leave his wife, that is until Bettie leaves and lives in a home where unwed mothers give up their babies for adoption. They run off together to Australia, but Henry is always leaving her and the baby, Lucy, on their own to drink and gamble. He's an abusive, alcoholic, but he loves his daughter more than anything. After 4 years, Bettie is done with the abuse, and she has reason to believe that Henry and Molly, Henry's wife, will take Lucy and run away together. So instead of giving him the chance, she takes Lucy and goes to Lewinford to work as a seamstress. She also gets a job at Wildflower Hill, a rather promiscuous farm, serving food and drinks to guests. I look up to Bettie because she has such strong willpower, to do whatever she can for her daughter Lucy, even when Lucy sadly isn't in the picture anymore. I don't think any reader could have predicted what would happen to Beattie, because it seemed as if she just couldn't get a break.
With Emma, however, it's a different story, she's 32 and has no dreams of being a mother or having a family, and eventually her boyfriend leaves her because she is so wrapped up in ballet, that there is no room for anything else. She's a dancer, through and through, that is until she falls and tears ligaments in her knee, forcing her to move back to Australia with her mom, discovering her grandmother's gift to her, which she was to receive only after she had retired from dancing. She wasn't ready to retire, but now she is forced to. Emma begins to find things out at Wildflower Hill about her grandmother's past, and eventually about her own future.
This is a powerful story, one that makes me hope that everyone has a happy ending, even if it's generations later.
"He seemed to her in that moment as he had always seemed: a stranger right beside her, somebody she knew well but didn't know at all" (page 14).
"Even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day" (page 149).
"But the worst mistake we can make about old people is to forget they were once young" (page 412).
We find Bettie unwed, and yet pregnant - losing everything within chapters, from her job and friends to her family and the baby's father, Henry. He wants nothing to do with her because he is married and cannot leave his wife, that is until Bettie leaves and lives in a home where unwed mothers give up their babies for adoption. They run off together to Australia, but Henry is always leaving her and the baby, Lucy, on their own to drink and gamble. He's an abusive, alcoholic, but he loves his daughter more than anything. After 4 years, Bettie is done with the abuse, and she has reason to believe that Henry and Molly, Henry's wife, will take Lucy and run away together. So instead of giving him the chance, she takes Lucy and goes to Lewinford to work as a seamstress. She also gets a job at Wildflower Hill, a rather promiscuous farm, serving food and drinks to guests. I look up to Bettie because she has such strong willpower, to do whatever she can for her daughter Lucy, even when Lucy sadly isn't in the picture anymore. I don't think any reader could have predicted what would happen to Beattie, because it seemed as if she just couldn't get a break.
With Emma, however, it's a different story, she's 32 and has no dreams of being a mother or having a family, and eventually her boyfriend leaves her because she is so wrapped up in ballet, that there is no room for anything else. She's a dancer, through and through, that is until she falls and tears ligaments in her knee, forcing her to move back to Australia with her mom, discovering her grandmother's gift to her, which she was to receive only after she had retired from dancing. She wasn't ready to retire, but now she is forced to. Emma begins to find things out at Wildflower Hill about her grandmother's past, and eventually about her own future.
This is a powerful story, one that makes me hope that everyone has a happy ending, even if it's generations later.
"He seemed to her in that moment as he had always seemed: a stranger right beside her, somebody she knew well but didn't know at all" (page 14).
"Even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day" (page 149).
"But the worst mistake we can make about old people is to forget they were once young" (page 412).