The Four Winds - Kristin Hannah - 2021

 


Shout out Aunt Tami for the recommendation! I am entering the world of fiction now. I'm getting burned out on nonfiction. Kristin Hannah is probably my new favorite fiction author. This book is money. It is fiction but the characters live in a time that actually happened (dust bowl, great depression etc.). This is 14.5 hours on audio (it is long). Since I read it concurrently with Last of the Mohicans I will say it is just as good as that one if not better. The plot is likely better, but I had trouble reading such a sad story. Again, get your tissues ready for this one. It is even more sad than last of the mohicans. 

A note on audiobooks. I feel you can really read a lot of volume via audio because your eyes never get tired and you can "read" while cooking, driving etc. I will say that audio does not help your spelling. At the very end I read a summary and I got to see for the first time how the characters' names are actually spelled. You also never get to see how words you are unfamiliar with are spelled. The audio person for this book was a woman. She portrayed all of the characters, including the men. Perhaps Last of the Mohicans was the same way but the reverse with a man doing all of the characters. I am not sure. Both readers did a great job. I think the four winds narrator was probably better than the guy who did Last of the Mohicans.
I guess that is a job for some people lol. They get paid to read books aloud. That's pretty cool. Also I think this book was perhaps more sad (more sad than me just reading it) because of the audio. You can hear the anger, sadness, and all emotion a lot more. This being said, I am still not sure which one is better (audio vs reading). Maybe audio is better because you can close your eyes and imagine the story really well. It is truly tv in your head. 

The character development of Elsa (the protagonist of the story) by Kristin Hannah is perhaps some of the best I have ever read. She really really grows this character slowly and steadily throughout the book. It is a crescendo of character development. 

For the record, I almost cried a bunch of times. I put this story up there with American Dirt (fiction) and Unbroken (nonfiction, it is hard to compare fiction with nonfiction but the stories (one true, one not) are both really good)). page it for sure!!! 

p.s. I will bet anything that this becomes a movie. There is little doubt in my mind that it will be a movie one day soon. Kudos to the author!

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