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A review by fulltimefiction
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
3.0
This is my 4th book by Kristin Hannah and she has honestly made it to my auto-read/buy/listen list. There’s something so captivating about her style that keeps me coming back for more even if I fully know that her books are far from being perfect. While listening to the audio, I just wanted to drop whatever I’m doing and just... listen. It certainly helped that the talented Julia Whelan was narrating this book and she was as amazing as ever. Too bad Hannah decided to go with the overdramatic ending (again).
This time, Hannah decided to set her story during the Dust Bowls in Texas and it was a good choice because I’ve never heard about them before this book, so it was a unique setting for me. It tells the story of Elsa, unloved by her parents and forced to marry someone she made a mistake with. But she finds herself in her new life. While life isn’t all perfect, at least she was getting by. Until the drought starts.
The Four Winds is brutal. There are lots of hardships in this book so if you’re interested, prepare yourself for that. Hannah has a “classic” plotline that when I read the ending is overdone, I immediately knew what’s going to happen so when it did… I just let out a sigh of disappointment. It didn’t affect me at as it was instead.
But other than that, I really enjoyed the book. I didn’t love it but it was fascinating to read about those times and how Californians saw migrants. My favorite part was the history. I just love those books that mix real-life historic events with fiction. I know Hannah wasn’t 100% loyal to the dates and events but the general situation during those times was the same.
Another thing I liked in this book was the wife/mother-in-law relationship. Hannah is truly skilled at writing beautiful and complex female relationships from the same and different generations. I loved how Elsa’s relationship with Rose progressed and how the two women came to see the strengths in the other. I’m honestly looking forward to see what she’ll explore in the future. A good thing she has so many books because I have a feeling, I’m going to listen to one every few months. They make excellent audiobooks! (Okay Home Front narrator wasn’t good but the story is the kind I’d rather listen to than read.)
I also appreciated Elsa’s relationship with Loreda. After hating the mother-daughter relationship in Home Front (well the daughter mainly), it was much better developed and handled in this book. Loreda was a teen who had her own dreams like anyone her age but was devasted to see them crushed... and she needed someone to blame. Ant, though, sounded younger than 8 years old? More like 6 or so, I was surprised when it was mentioned at some point that he’s eight.
I’m going to round up my rating to 3 stars because I rated The Great Alone 4 stars and the latter affected me more. Here I was just fascinated about what people went through and not Elsa’s story in particular. I would’ve kept the 4 stars because the story was truly compelling if it wasn’t for that ending.