astehling's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
julesbookstack's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
stitchykitch's review against another edition
5.0
I thought I was over that habit of resisting the last couple pages of a book I love. Guess not!
Hanna's Daughters is a beautiful story about 3 generations of Swedish women, their relationships, their joys and sorrows. I did not realize it at first, but I was deeply affected by the three women and their stories. Sympathetic emotions is what I experienced--not sympathy for the characters, but whatever they were feeling, I was feeling, long after putting the book down.
A beautiful book, I recommend it to all daughters.
Hanna's Daughters is a beautiful story about 3 generations of Swedish women, their relationships, their joys and sorrows. I did not realize it at first, but I was deeply affected by the three women and their stories. Sympathetic emotions is what I experienced--not sympathy for the characters, but whatever they were feeling, I was feeling, long after putting the book down.
A beautiful book, I recommend it to all daughters.
mbsteblein's review against another edition
4.0
Tale of several generations of a Scandinavian family - evoked a variety of emotions.
nursenell's review against another edition
4.0
The synopsis Goodreads has for this book isn't even remotely related to the book I just read, Hanna's Daughters by Marianne Fredriksson. This is the story of 3 generations of Swedish women: grandmother, mother, daughter. They've each had a different life yet each has had to deal with great loss. It is the story of how the events of one generation affect the next generation. It was a little hard to keep all the names and places straight. The time period is from the second half of the 1800's through the 1900's.
bogfinchgirl's review against another edition
2.0
I liked the first section of the book about Hanna, but by about 2/3 through, I had totally lost interest in the characters and the story. It took me forever to pick the book up again to finish it.
catladylover94's review against another edition
3.0
very hard read, confusing, the only story i really liked were hanna and her husband john's life together, the rest were not as interesting
mcreed06's review against another edition
3.0
Hanna's Daughters is a family saga set in Sweden that spans three generations of women from the 1870s to the 1980s. Hanna's Daughters, translated into English from its original language, is a nice glimpse into life in Sweden. Relative to the rest of the world, Sweden's history seems mild. Yet, the Scandinavian country has seen its hardships. Chief among them would be famine in the 19th century, which was incorporated into Hanna's story (the first of the three generations).
Stories of mothers and daughters are effective in narrating panoramic views of multiple eras. Another three-generational, mother-daughter format is the memoir Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It's set a country that subjected its people to intense brutality and immense suffering throughout the 20th century. Compared to the Chinese, the Swedish have had it easy.
There were good parts, especially within Hanna's story, but overall I found Hanna's Daughters to be contrived to a point of annoyance.
The Varmland sofa alone was enough to bind the three generations. Appearance, personality and relationship quirks do not always have to be matched to an older generational relative's. In this aspect, Fredriksson did a lot of "telling," rather than "showing." A writer should trust readers to figure certain things out on their own.
The writer intended to make Anna deep and contemplative. After all, she lived in an era that afforded people the time and education for prolonged introspection. Yet, Anna's excusing her serial cheating husband as his underlying attempt to "find his way back to her," was pretentious at best.
Hanna's story was, by far, the best one. Joanna's was just a culmination of her mother Hanna's hard work, and favorable circumstances including extended family support. Then, Anna's story was nothing special; it brought to mind Frank McCourt's famous line from Angela's Ashes: "...the happy childhood is hardly worth your while." Wild Swans on the other hand…each of the three generations endured unimaginable hardships.
One-dimensional tangents; August's suicide for instance. That was one sentence in Hanna's story, and was not mentioned once in Johanna's or Anna's. Another one-sentence tangent was Ragnar's self determination that his mother (Hanna) never have knowledge of what went on between him and Aunt Astrida in the attic.
Nevertheless, I would still recommend Hanna's Daughters to anybody set to travel to Norway and Sweden. The novel does garner appreciation of the beautiful Scandinavian countries.
Stories of mothers and daughters are effective in narrating panoramic views of multiple eras. Another three-generational, mother-daughter format is the memoir Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It's set a country that subjected its people to intense brutality and immense suffering throughout the 20th century. Compared to the Chinese, the Swedish have had it easy.
There were good parts, especially within Hanna's story, but overall I found Hanna's Daughters to be contrived to a point of annoyance.
The Varmland sofa alone was enough to bind the three generations. Appearance, personality and relationship quirks do not always have to be matched to an older generational relative's. In this aspect, Fredriksson did a lot of "telling," rather than "showing." A writer should trust readers to figure certain things out on their own.
The writer intended to make Anna deep and contemplative. After all, she lived in an era that afforded people the time and education for prolonged introspection. Yet, Anna's excusing her serial cheating husband as his underlying attempt to "find his way back to her," was pretentious at best.
Hanna's story was, by far, the best one. Joanna's was just a culmination of her mother Hanna's hard work, and favorable circumstances including extended family support. Then, Anna's story was nothing special; it brought to mind Frank McCourt's famous line from Angela's Ashes: "...the happy childhood is hardly worth your while." Wild Swans on the other hand…each of the three generations endured unimaginable hardships.
One-dimensional tangents; August's suicide for instance. That was one sentence in Hanna's story, and was not mentioned once in Johanna's or Anna's. Another one-sentence tangent was Ragnar's self determination that his mother (Hanna) never have knowledge of what went on between him and Aunt Astrida in the attic.
Nevertheless, I would still recommend Hanna's Daughters to anybody set to travel to Norway and Sweden. The novel does garner appreciation of the beautiful Scandinavian countries.