The Book Addict

Book Review: "The Winter Garden" by Kristen Hannah

Synopsis:

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

When I first started reading this book I had no idea where the story was going and it took me a chapter or two to really get into. Once I realized where the story was going and got swept back in time to World War II and the devastated Russian city of Leningrad, I found myself totally fascinated about this story of daughters really having no clue who their mother truly was, and the type of unimaginable circumstances she had lived through. Death, starvation, despair, but ultimately a chance at another life far far away in America. Their mother Anya can only manage to tell her experiences by means of a fairytale format where she can pretend those things happened to someone else. Because the sisters promised their father by his last dying wish that they would make their mother tell them the entire story, it forces them to spend more time with their mother and learn to look past her seemingly cold and uncaring exterior to what was really just a way of coping with her prior life. It also begins to form a stronger bond between the sisters who have lived apart for many years. Again, I love a good story within a story so I found it had a lot of different depths - mother/daughter relationships, sibling relationships, marital relationships, it all comes together in the end after the two sisters convince their mother to join them on an Alaskan cruise where they can finally all find closure to what's been troubling them most in their lives. This book was both funny and sad and inspired me even more to share my life experiences with my own children - good and bad. It was especially touching to read about the cycle of care giving between mothers and daughters. It also describes lots and lots of wonderfully yummy sounding Russian cuisine which has interested me to find out more about that as well.

**On a side note, the historical events intertwined into the story are actually true and very sad.  I myself was not very familiar with the siege of Leningrad, which is considered the most lethal siege in World History, and all that that entailed. It inspired me to research and educate myself on that particular part of World War II, and I was fascinated that such a horrific battle is not very well known about in the larger spectrum of the war. It you are unfamiliar with it as well, I encourage you that it is definitely worth learning about.  Here is a brief breakdown --

The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation by the German Army Group North and the Finnish Defence Forces to capture Leningrad in the Eastern Front theatre of the Second World War. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed. Although the Soviets managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, the total lifting took place on 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and one of the most costly in terms of casualties. The city was cut off from food, communication, and constantly bombed.

The two-and-a-half year siege caused the greatest destruction and the largest loss of life ever known in a modern city. On Hitler's express orders, most of the palaces of the Tsars, such as the Catherine Palace, Peterhof Palace, Ropsha, Strelna, Gatchina, and other historic landmarks located outside the city's defensive perimeter were looted and then destroyed, with many art collections transported to Nazi Germany. A number of factories, schools, hospitals and other civil infrastructure were destroyed by air raids and long range artillery bombardment.

The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, mainly women and children, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment. Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery alone in Leningrad holds half a million civilian victims of the siege. Economic destruction and human losses in Leningrad on both sides exceeded those of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow, or the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The siege of Leningrad is the most lethal siege in world history, and some historians speak of the siege operations in terms of genocide, as a "racially motivated starvation policy" that became an integral part of the unprecedented German war of extermination against populations of the Soviet Union generally.

Civilians in the city suffered from extreme starvation, especially in winter of 1941–1942. For example, from November 1941 to February 1942 the only food available to the citizen was 125 grams of bread, which by 50–60 per cent consisted of sawdust and other inedible admixtures, and distributed with ration cards. For about 2 weeks at the beginning of January 1942 even this food was available only for workers and military personnel. In conditions of extreme temperatures (down to −30 °С) and city transport being out of service a few kilometers to the food distributing kiosks were insurmountable obstacles for many citizens. In January–February 1942 about 700–10,000 citizens died every day, most of them from hunger. People often died on the streets, and citizens shortly became accustomed to the look of death.

Reports of cannibalism appeared in the winter of 1941-1942, after all birds, rats and pets were eaten by survivors.  Hungry gangs attacked and ate defenseless people. Leningrad police even formed a special unit to combat cannibalism.


As horrible as all of this sounds, the book still managed to have a spirit of overcoming life's hardest obstacles as only women can do. We have families and children to take care of and life marches on whether we want it to or not. We can not stand idle, we are called to action when our families and loved ones need us and sometimes we have to make harder choices than we could have ever imagined. I absolutely loved the ending to this book and I plan on reading more from this author.

Overall Rating:

4 out of 5 bookmarks