2011/336 pgs
SPOILERS!! My review contains spoilers, so if you want to avoid them, don't read!!:)
I liked this book until about half way through. The first part about Victoria learning how to make a life for herself was interesting. The flashbacks to when Victoria was younger and lived with her foster mother, Elizabeth, was also interesting and I wanted to know what happened there to keep Elizabeth from adopting Victoria. (I was annoyed with the outcome of that plot as well and it made me really dislike Elizabeth).
When Victoria found out she was pregnant and then decided to abandon the guy (whose name I have forgotten!), the book lost me. She has the baby and goes into severe post-partum, yet the amazing and wonderful midwife who is helping out doesn't seem to notice anything is wrong. You would think being an amazing, wonderful midwife who has spent years taking care of babies would notice the signs. Yet no one around Victoria does. Then she leaves her baby and goes to sleep in the park where she slept when was homeless and ends up in the hospital where they mention that she just had a baby, only no one questions that she was in a park sleeping and has no baby with her. Throughout all of this I really started to dislike Victoria. Add that to my growing dislike of Elizabeth and I was glad when this book was over.
The end seemed too convenient and I liked the first half much better.
The Language of Flowers has a lot of hype as one of the big releases of the fall, and with good reason. The novel is emotionally powerful. And although the protagonist is horrible to many of the people around her, it's hard not to feel for this young woman who has only known true love once, just to have it taken away from her. You can understand why she acts the way she does, and you hope to see it all work out for her in the end.
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