Riverkeeper reviewed The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
None
3 stars
I've finished this book but I'm struggling to rate it properly.
The premise is interesting but I genuinely didn't care about the characters.
Elsa herself could have been such a better, more complex character but for me she just fell flat. Similarly with everyone else. They all just felt too stereotypical.
The handsome but unreliable husband. The supportive and loving nonna and nonno, the golden retriever son and the snarky, unbearable, teenage daughter.
Seriously? I doubt children were free to treat their parents with such disrespect at the time. Even teenagers??
The plot is filled with bad things happening one after the other and it felt like the author remembered only later that her main character should perhaps also care for other people. She leaves her elderly mother and father in law behind and NEVER seems to grieve over them or worry if they will survive, nothing. At one point, …
The premise is interesting but I genuinely didn't care about the characters.
Elsa herself could have been such a better, more complex character but for me she just fell flat. Similarly with everyone else. They all just felt too stereotypical.
The handsome but unreliable husband. The supportive and loving nonna and nonno, the golden retriever son and the snarky, unbearable, teenage daughter.
Seriously? I doubt children were free to treat their parents with such disrespect at the time. Even teenagers??
The plot is filled with bad things happening one after the other and it felt like the author remembered only later that her main character should perhaps also care for other people. She leaves her elderly mother and father in law behind and NEVER seems to grieve over them or worry if they will survive, nothing. At one point, getting ready to cross the desert in New Mexico she sees a mother and children on the road, walking in the same direction. And doesn't even stop??? Nothing??? They simply serve as a device for Elsa to reflect how a year ago she would have NEVER dared to set out alone?
Ma'am, you could have offered them a ride? Gas runs the same with 3 or 6 people?
Anyway, the moment Elsa gets her head out of her behind, and starts caring for other people and herself, she's dramatically killed. And it was obvious that the author wanted tears.
Unfortunately, at that point I just wanted to finish the book so it didn't really evoke the dramatic effect it should have.
I'm also deducting a point from the book because of the writing style. While some descriptions of the surroundings were great, the repetition of:
Elsa said X..
Elsa got up and X
Elsa did X
really bothered me. It felt like the writing got slightly better and with less repetition in the later part of the book.
