Winter Garden: A Novel by Kristin Hannah
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Web ID: 15843440Ratings & Reviews
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Incredible story!
I love this book so much! Kristen Hannah is an amazing writer. The details in the story of life growing up in the Soviet Union are incredible. Kristin grabs you early on in every book that she writes and doesn’t let you go. Definitely, definitely worth reading.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Repetitive, redundant, unoriginal.
Predictable, repetitive and redundant. Also, very unoriginal that the three men characters are all sensitive, loving and kind, and the three women characters are all the same, cold and selfish. Constantly repeating the same description of the mother‘s eyes. Almost seems like the author was bored writing it trying too hard to think of fresh descriptions for the repetitive story lines. Also If improper English is a pet peeve of yours, I do not recommend.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Sad but Good
It made me sad that it took to almost page 200 to get into this book. After that it was a fast, easy, but sad read. This is a fiction story but I'm sure there are some non fiction stories out there very similar to this. I used this book as part of a teaching lesson on how blessed we are to live in 2024 and that we don't have to eat wallpaper off the walls to survive. This would be a great book to have in a High School or College literature class. Lots to learn from this book.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Harrowing & Beautiful
I don't even know how to work out my feelings about Winter Garden. This book was dumped into my lap by Amazon when I signed up for KU. It was an audiobook & I needed something to listen to while waiting in the school pickup line. Honestly, I didn't even read the summary of the book, I just started playing it. So you can imagine my surprise when I was completely captivated by this harrowing retelling of the siege of Leningrad. This book will break your heart & tape it back together, just to turn around & completely obliterate it. Then after you become awestruck at the tremendous amount of strength & courage of these women, you will learn that you can take the pieces of your obliterated heart, mix it with some love from others, and form it into something new: a heart that holds love so strong that it stands the tests of time, trials, & tribulations because it holds close what matters most. Family: born & found.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
So happy I found Kristin Hannah
So far none of her books have disappointed me. This one was really incredible. I became so invested in the characters. There are so many strong women in the book. I highly recommend.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Family Face-off for a Mother and Her Two Daughters
One of the most emotionally rich, and difficult books I’ve ever read. One that I won’t soon forget. You will definitely understand what it's like to live in a war zone and under the Stalin regime. At the heart of WINTER GARDEN is the story of a family. Adult sisters Meredith and Nina could not be more different. • Meredith got married young to her childhood sweetheart and raised two girls who are now off at college. Meredith now runs the family business and, like many women, prioritizes everyone else’s needs over her own. • Nina is a single, successful photojournalist assigned to cover some of the most dangerous and dramatic events all around the world. Her work is her top priority, even if it means missing her sister’s wedding to cover a story. What the two sisters have in common is the lifelong distance each has felt from their mother, Anya, a Russian émigré who seems incapable of showing either daughter any affection. All the love in this family has been centered on the father, who tries his best to bring the three women he loves together. When he dies early in the novel and can no longer serve as family peacemaker, the three women must learn to deal directly with one another. The difficulty for these three women wanting to form new connections is related to the secrets Anya is keeping. Secrets about her life during World War II, and more specifically, during the siege of Leningrad. Secrets that are slowly revealed as the book progresses, through what I considered an ingenious device created by the author. Kristin Hannah is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. And it’s not just the power of her writing style. Her characters are multi-dimensional and completely believable. They became real people to me as Hannah slowly and skillfully explored each one’s rich emotional complexity. And not surprisingly, as Anya’s secrets are revealed, all three women find they must reexamine how they see both the events of the past and their current interactions. I highly recommend this book. Though fair warning - I had to take breaks at time when I felt too overwhelmed by the emotional content.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Winter Garden
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah evokes poignant memories of relationships with my mother and my sister. As a rule, we leave so much unsaid, but Anya, Meredith, and Nina work through years of silence to find one another. The story and imagery flow beautifully as a fairy tale transcends into a nonfiction saga. The story repeats too often and many of the pages could have been omitted. Yes, the horrors of Russia and its citizens during the German invasion reek of events that continue to happen as aggression replaces acceptance. The story shows all the problems of life in Russian but fails to mention the hardships of running an apple orchard. A surprise awaits Anya, Meredith, and Nina when they arrive in Alaska. I felt that this final event really stretched the truth, but each reader may think differently.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A Beautiful Story
4/5 stars WWII historical fiction; alternating timeline; trigger warnings below Winter Garden is a beautiful story about a dysfunctional mother & daughter relationship and the discovery of a hidden past. This story is full of complex characters drama, and heartache. As expected with any Kristin Hannah novel, this story will rip your heart open in the most marvelous way. I really enjoyed the story within a story that existed in this book, using the alternating timeline. I greatly appreciated how the “story” was italicized, giving the past its own voice throughout the book. While the overall storyline seemed a bit unrealistic, I enjoyed watching the story unfold. Audiobook Thoughts: I adored that the narrator gave the story of the past a Russian accent, really bringing that story to life and helping to differentiate the two parts of the story. Trigger Warning: War, Death, Starvation, Death of a Child, Grief
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com