Book Review: Winter Garden

My mom suggested I read this lovely book, Winter Garden, so we could discuss during on our upcoming trip to Oklahoma City.  We've wanted to start a little book club ever since I moved to the Pacific Northwest from Colorado.  This is our first book we've tried, it only took three years!

Kristin Hannah's writing is captivating and flows easily from the page.  I was able to finish the book in just a few days.  She is able to paint beautiful images of place, unique and relatable characters, and dynamic and truthful relationships.  Winter Garden is a story of a mother and her grown daughters learning to understand each other and themselves.

One quote that really stuck me from this book was when Meredith, the eldest daughter, speaks of her deteriorating relationship with her husband to her mother.  

"I don't know what's going to happen," Meredith said a last. "I think love can just... dissolve."
"No, it does not," her mother said.
"So how do --"
"You hang on," her mother said. "Until your hands are bleeding, and still you do not let go."

Something about that image of hanging on until your hands are bleeding, that you never, ever give up on love was very powerful for me.  So often we are quick to give up on things, circumstances, people because the challenges seem to hard to face.  But love is different, its worth all the pain and struggle to hang on to.