The Four Winds: A Novel

And she's done it again! Kristin Hannah has a way of taking me on a journey into the past and leaving me with feelings of shock, sadness, anger and more knowledge than I started with, but she's also a master at taking all of that and showing there are those who, with the courage, strength and resiliency to survive, can change their stories in history, even change history itself. Lift themselves up, carry on and show the strength of the pure human spirit when everything around them is in tatters.The Four Winds is not the book for you if you're looking for an easy read that you can just blow through (no pun intended) and say, "Yeah, that was great." No it's a real story of a horrible time in American history. I chose this one to read right away because it dealt with The Great Depression, it seemed especially relative to me right now. What I would call a timely book for these times. As we go through what's being labeled as the worst economic disaster since The Great Depression, I wanted to know what went on to the marginalized people of our nation in the 1930's. Historically it's the underserved, poor and devastated that suffer in times of crisis, we're seeing it happening again and I wonder will we ever learn? What's it going to take? When is enough enough?Elsa Martinelli hasn't had an easy life, her family shunned her, she just wasn't pretty enough to warrant attention from them. But it's her life after marriage that the book concentrates on. Elsa finds herself in a new town, living on a farm with her in-laws within the Great Plains of America, what will soon be called The Dust Bowl after years of drought and failing farms, hungry families, mountains of dust being blown and covering everything in it's wake and little hope for change. She's a farm girl now and calls the Plains her home, but after years of trying to live in a place where the dust is burying them more every year, crops will not grow without water and it's become dangerous for her to stay, Elsa decides to migrate West to California with her daughter and son. A feat that she never dreamed she'd be able to do. They suffer greatly trying to make it across the country in an old, broken down truck, just the three of them. I would think in the 1930's a woman alone, with only her two young children would have to have been the bravest of the brave, the determined few who would do anything to find the American dream!Once they reached the Golden State their hopes and dreams of a new home, friendly neighbors and jobs, soon becomes a real life disappointment. There are no jobs for the thousands and thousands who are like Elsa trying to escape their dire circumstances and continue with their hopes of the American dream. Soon they'll have to settle for a spot in one of the many immigrant tent cities, where Elsa is again challenged to provide for her children as best she can. She finds a job picking cotton, but then goes through the injustice of the greedy owner. Her soul is constantly being chipped away, but she persisted! The residents of California are nothing short of mean and nasty to these immigrants and won't even give them a chance. They are taunted with names, discriminated against at every turn, left to suffer on their own, but Elsa is not giving up. It's so important to her to teach her children what's important in life and try to keep them in school, education will further their dreams for a better future. This will not be an easy task for Elsa, but she's become a tougher than nails kinda gal and doesn't stop trying any more than she'd stop loving her children,After meeting up with an activist/communist who has a heart for the downtrodden and wants to help, she encounters the other side of greed. Someone finally understands the nightmare she and thousands of other families are living through. She's hesitant at first to get involved, after all he is a communist, and during the 30's that was not the label you wanted attached to your name. Elsa's daughter has grown up to be a smart, independent thinker with ideas of her own, I loved to read that teen girls in the 1930's were not that much different from the 1990's when I was going through the hell of a teenage daughter with a strong independent personality who thought she knew it all. Anyway, her daughter sees things as a simple right and wrong conversation, but the realities of surviving are left to her mom, the one whose been particular about how honest she is with her for fear of scaring the kids or allowing them to think they're less than. She's one heck of a mom in a time when trying to care for oneself is hard enough, but to raise strong, resilient children is almost impossible.This will be another book that doesn't leave me soon. Both my parents survived the Great Depression, but for personal reasons never talked much about it. Every once in a while when my dad would tell a story of his childhood I could detect from the settings he used that he was one of the very poor in the 1930's. Little food, torn and outgrown clothes, no jobs, no money and hardship at every turn, but then I listen to stories my mom told and she was of the upper class and didn't go through any of this. I've always wondered how can this be? They lived miles from one another as kids, both of their sets of parents were hard working and caring people, the difference was money. It angers me that those who have are always making the decisions for those who don't . Blame it on capitalism, racism, cronyism or any other ism you can think of, to me it all boils down to a lack of humanity towards your fellow man/woman. When does kindness, caring and assisting those less fortunate come into the conversation? Are we again going to argue over ism's and whose right or wrong, or are we going to say enough is enough and begin treating others like we'd like to be treated, you know the golden rule we all learned as kids!I love Kristin Hannah and the way she can take a story of horrible circumstances and people's struggles and turn them into a need to read novel. Her research is always impeccable and her characters are real people with real problems and desires. Their stories need to be told, even though these are fictional characters, there are millions of everyday people who can relate to Elsa's strength, determination and persistence in her quest to better themselves in a world that's never on their side. The everyman/woman we all want to see make it. Through Hannah's books we get the chance to go back in history, hear the stories and see the resiliency of the human spirit again and again. Some are saying this one is just too depressing, yes it is, but sometimes we need to be uncomfortable in our own skin to have our eyes opened. Maybe because this story is being retold all over the US right now. Greed over need, power over what's good and just. sound bytes over action. This is a timely read and one that needs to be told. I suggest also reading Hannah's acknowledgements in the back of the book, it gave me insight into how she decided to write this one, what her inspiration was and a bit about where she stands on this nation in pain. Yes folks she's done it to me again, I don't cry over books, but this really rocked me. The Four Winds will be blowing through my mind for some time to come. Happy Reading!

I admit it. I was trying to walk and read and hold in my tears. It was a great novel that I enjoyed a lot. It is a time in history I knew a little about, but this possessed me to delve deeper into some of these disasters a lot more. It had me looking up about the workers group. One of my favorite movies is Newsies, and it also shed some light on these stories.This story was filled with life. Heartbreak, love, loss, laughter, good times, bad times. So much that helped shape America, ideas, and where we are at now. I would recommend this book to Historical Fiction lovers.There were a couple of swear words. There was a very tastefully done love scene. And a couple scenes that were mentioned very early on. There is also verbal abuse.

I struggled to get through this book. The first half was so slow. I kept putting it down but it always brought me back. During the last 40% of the book- it was everything I was looking for. It made the wait worthwhile. Seeing Elsa bloom in such a realistic way was a treasure. In many cases, this was truly a book about motherhood and what a mother will do for her kids and the struggle every day to try and do what's right. I'm so glad I kept picking this book back up.

This was a very easy, quick read. Set in 1930s depression era, it is a story about a very hard life. I feel like the author could have easily made the characters lives more tragic, which is crazy to say because they do go through a lot of difficult things. I just couldn't help but feel like it fell short to what it was like in real life.I walked away from this book grateful to be living now and not then. Thankful for even little conveniences, and overlooking what I used to think we're inconveniences, understanding just how lucky we are to be living now in America. While many feel like the world is on fire right now, there are more jobs than people willing to work. I easily have access to clean things, cooling and heating, indoor plumbing, food - and I can get all these things without hard manual labor thanks to technology making nearly every job easier. I realize that poverty does exist still, but it's not the same as 1930 poverty. A book worth reading.I read the authors epilogue and that was what made me give to book only four stars. She compares the pandemic to the depression and dust bowl and I just couldn't.... I think this country may face true hardship again, but the pandemic is not comparable to that 1930s tragedies. Not even close. Most people I know, in all walks of life, where making more money during the pandemic and had access to more things than before it. Living in fear, but still living in comfort. Living in fear, but with full bellies. And it was a year at most, not nearly a decade. She's very ignorant with her comparison to think she has experienced, that we have experienced, anything to come close to the tragedy of the 1930s.

From the hardship of being overlooked in a family with money to the hardship of trying to find strength when there was no money to feed her family, the story of Elsa is a captivating tale of tough times for those living off the land in the US.

I have read many of her books, always hoping for something that reaches the heights of Nightingale. The Great Alone came close. This one is closer. That is the best review I can give for seekers of good Historical Fiction

I bought this book for an online book club, as it sounded like a fascinating part of American history to write about, and it’s by a best selling author. What could go wrong?Elsa knows she’s ugly and not worth loving. Her rich parents and pretty sisters confirm this every day, although Elsa tries hard to be a good daughter and sister. She is so downtrodden, she prefers to spend her days in her room reading romantic novels to escape the unkindness of life. But one day she buys some silky red material on a whim, sews herself a flapper dress and wanders into town. Having been turned away from the jazz club by the doorman who knows her daddy, she bumps into Rafe – a total stranger – gets into his truck with him and lets him make love to her.When Elsa falls pregnant, she is of course disowned by the family, and daddy leaves her at Rafe’s family farm for them to deal with as they wish.This is more or less what happens throughout the book. Elsa is faced with many desperate situations, and throughout them all she trudges along, managing things in what to me was a dour, practical manner. I kind of began to understand why the family were glad to see the back of her. And when, at the end of the book, we are faced with a new, strong Elsa risking her life for a point of principle (and suddenly articulate when before she found it hard to tell her children she loved them), it was all too sudden, and too late to develop any real empathy for the woman. As for the supporting cast, including the ‘feisty’ daughter, I found them mostly to be shallow caricatures, being either good to saintly, or perfectly evil. And none of them interesting.The redeeming aspect of the book was learning more about this dreadful period of American history, and how terribly the dispossessed were treated. For the rest, I won’t be rushing to buy this author again.

The book is moving and quite a saga. It has echoes of John Steinbeck's books The Grapes of Wrath and of Mice and Men but, also, in Elsa Martinelli's bravery and spirit and love of the land, echoes too of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the wind and her love of Tara but it is also unique for me in that I knew next to nothing of the hardships suffered by the people of The Great Plains, the poverty and hardships endured by migrant workers escaping the dust bowl and heading to California in the depression era of the 1930s. The droughts, the despair, the millions heading West to California for a better life it proved near impossible to find, and how hungry homeless and helpless those lives became as the migrants became trapped in a spiral of poverty debt and despair.The story of these migrants classed as Okies and their extreme suffering is depicted movingly in beautiful prose that makes you weep for their plight. I preordered this book, waited nine months for it to arrive in my kindle and have been glued to the book since I received it.Kristin Hannah is a wonderful writer, one of my favourites and the story and characters in this book, the depiction of the endurance, resilience and bravery it took to survive are astounding. An easy 5 shiny stars from me. A beautiful story.

In Texas, after the Great War, 25-year-old Elsa Wolcott was deemed ‘too old to marry’ until one day she met Rafe Martinelli, leaves her family and embarks on a new life on his family farm on the Great Plains.However, by 1934 life on the farm begins to get harder and harder as droughts threaten their crops, livelihood, and safety, and so Elsa has to decide whether to stay or take the perilous journey in search of ‘a better life’ in California.My thoughtsThis book is epic, on emotion and scale. As a British reader I always find stories based in the vast areas of the USA incredible, and this one was no exception, especially one based on historical events, in this case the Great Depression and Dust Bowl.Elsa’s character grew and developed maturely, as she did in her own story, finding strengths and self-confidence to get through each day, but the author also showed us her vulnerabilities throughout; with her relationships with her old family, new husband and his family, and especially with her children and her quest to keep them alive.There were some great positive female characters and I loved Elsa’s deep relationship with her friend Jean.The storm scenes were brilliantly described. I have no idea if they were an accurate depiction but my goodness, at some points I could taste the dust!I would have given it 5 stars, except I found one part just a little over-politicised which, although I am sure was part of the situation at the time, just didn’t sit as well with the rest of this very personal story.This book covers many heart-breaking, hard-hitting topics including loss, poverty and discrimination, but it made me want to find out more about this period in history in the US. This, and the fact that I found myself continually willing them on, is always a sign of a great read to me.

I was so delighted to see a new book by Kristin, and it did not disappoint. I've read all her novels - all very different, but the characters and storylines are wonderful. I felt the pain and the hardships of Elsa and her family as they struggled through many challenges, and didn't want the book to end. I read well into the night, and as always with Kristin's books, find myself thinking of her characters and storylines long after finishing the book. I also learned so much about US history through the droughts, dustbowl and flights to a better life in California that people experienced not so long ago.I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a moving and powerful story, and now patiently await Kristin's next book.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Amazing. I am broken. I cried a lot ! I highly recommend this book to anyone I could not put it down I was gripped from the first page to the last. Such a heart wrenching story. I did not want it to end.