The Four Winds...Read it and Weep.

“A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me.”

These are some tired eyes. That’s what happens when your book keeps you up till 1 am. Kristin Hannah never ceases to amaze me. When her new novel popped up on my Book of the Month for February, there was not an ounce of hesitation. In the end, I cried and cried, but that is nothing new with her. I often find myself a sufferer of major emotional book hangovers. I think that is the result of forming such a strong connection to the characters. I find this, especially in these novels. I think that there has been searching and aching to find something to cry about after these months of desensitization as we continue to reconfigure to this world we find ourselves in.

Life is tough right now. I wish there were some levity behind that statement, but I'm done acting like everything is okay. I lost my love for reading in it all. I realized quickly that I needed to catch it before it was too far gone. I often forget how much peace it brings me. Something so simple can finally hit the breaks in what feels like my brain turning at 1,000 mph. With that, I decided not to make it a chore anymore. To read for me and no one else. Not my professors, not my institution, not for my classes or for my papers. For myself. 30 minutes a night. That was the promise I made to myself.

Well...it's turned into about an hour a night, and it is something that often gets me through the day by having something to look forward to. I'm so happy that this was the book to bring me back. We dedicate time and effort to things that we love and need. Just because something is considered a necessity does not mean that we cannot want it in our souls. There must be that balance between wants and needs. There is no need to feel like it is a chore, especially when it is something that you love. We must fight for what we love.

“It wasn’t the fear that mattered in life. It was the choices made when you were afraid. You were brave because of your fear, not in spite of it.”

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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.

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The Nightingale, another of Hannah's, is my all-time favorite book. I think that everything that I touch and see is compared to it, even subconsciously. Her repertoire fills my "to read" list, and I gush and gush about her whenever I can.

The Four Winds spoke to my soul. As someone who hopes to be a mother one day. As a daughter. As a woman. As someone who is actively living through a pandemic. As someone who lives their life with hope in their heart that cannot be broken. As an American.

“We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure."

- CÉSAR CHÁVEZ

Hardships fuel life. To reflect on such a complicated piece in our country’s history where the lands were crippled by poverty and depression was riveting, especially as we breathe through another pivotal time now. And with that, this novel did take that breath away. Right when I felt like there were no tears left to cry...

Please read it. And weep, in the most beautiful way possible. Mothers and daughters, this will speak to you. Never judge a person’s life story by the chapter they are living in.

“The four winds have blown us here, people from all across the country, to the very end of this great land. And now, at last, we make our stand, fight for what we know to be right. We fight for our American dream, that it will be possible again.”

-Kristin Hannah, The Four Winds