The Four Winds | ARC Review

My Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Title: The Four Winds

Author: Kristin Hannah

Format: eBook (NetGalley)

Pages: 464

Publication Date: St. Martin’s Press

Publication Date: 2/2/21

Categories: Historical Fiction, Dust Bowl, Family

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes an epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras—the Great Depression.

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. 

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

• Kristin Hannah is an auto-read author for me. She does it again with The Four Winds and wow, this is a heavy read. But like the amazing writer she is, she makes you feel despair, desperation, fear, loss and eventually hope. This story is a hard journey into a bleak time during American History, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl era.
• Not only does this book make you feel – it places you in the specific time and place so you can be there in person, struggling with Elsa and the Martinelli’s. I was praying for rain to help them! I was pleading for her daughter to give her mom a break. I was begging them to take the government help. I was enraged at the discrimination and poverty they experienced in California. Kristin Hannah always does research for her books and it shows! It’s why I love her books so much.
• Elsa is our main character and she is a girl who just wants to be loved. She’s been ruled by fear and rules all her life only to be discarded by her family. But does she survive? Hell yes…she does everything for the love of her children. My god, her mother’s love is heartbreaking and enduring. Her daughter Loreda is a strong force in this story as well. She is carefree like her father and is at an age where she fights her mother on everything. It’s a long road for all of them, but mostly for these two and their relationship.
• This story is so multi-layered. There are so many themes in this book: motherhood, pride, discrimination, poverty and survival.

• Triggers: poverty, discrimination, depression
• This story is pretty bleak and depressing. There isn’t much happy times at all in this book.

Kristin Hannah once again weaves an emotional tale of brutal struggle and hope. The mother-daughter relationship in this book hit me hard, especially at the end. Elsa Martinelli’s journey is one of courage and strength and I wished so much life was kinder to her. This is an inspiring story to remind us we can get through hard times and no matter what, love endures.

💛 ~ Yolanda