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alisoun's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
Soooooo this is a weird one for me to read.
This is a story started in 1941 and it's about two very normal people who fall in love. They both have a lot of trauma, and they both just want to be happy.
Elly is five months pregnant when Will answers an ad she placed asking for a husband. She's a widow, and her previous husband is so lovingly described by her. He was a dreamer and he started things and never finished them. He left behind two boys and another in Elly's belly and she needs help on her little farm.
It's a romance - sure. But it's very different from romances written now. There's multiple sex scenes of other characters. The MMC has a sexual dream of another woman and wakes touching his pregnant wife's body. There's other woman drama but not quite how I expected it. There's war - it's set in 1941 of course. There's trauma to pile on the trauma they already had. There's a birth scene which is both so close to true birth and also so far away from it. There's a librarian old enough to be will's grandma who becomes his good friend. There's two little boys who are such bothers and also such loves. I adored the scene where will and Elly dry them after they were stung by bees.
I gotta take about the birth scene. I know it was set in the 1940s so the science of it all is off a fair bit. For example, they are way hard up for cleaning and sterilising everything including Elly's vulva. Also the placenta is born before the baby breathes????? That is extr mely incorrect. But it also describes a perineum stretching and comfry being used to heal a perineum tear (which in my mind, on her third baby shouldn't happen if she was allowed to birth off her back but she makes herself birth on her back and even with her legs in stirrups! Goes to show that USA based removal of midwifery affected even unassisted home birth practises).
It's not a perfect book. It was very interesting but I didn't very much fall in love with these two. I also think their troubles (particularly Elly's family trauma and will's clear PTSD) didn't get enough time to smooth over.
Overall though it was a sweet book. I can imagine these two as very real people who continued to make quince pie and to let honey run while they had grand children and great grand children.
This is a story started in 1941 and it's about two very normal people who fall in love. They both have a lot of trauma, and they both just want to be happy.
Elly is five months pregnant when Will answers an ad she placed asking for a husband. She's a widow, and her previous husband is so lovingly described by her. He was a dreamer and he started things and never finished them. He left behind two boys and another in Elly's belly and she needs help on her little farm.
It's a romance - sure. But it's very different from romances written now. There's multiple sex scenes of other characters. The MMC has a sexual dream of another woman and wakes touching his pregnant wife's body. There's other woman drama but not quite how I expected it. There's war - it's set in 1941 of course. There's trauma to pile on the trauma they already had. There's a birth scene which is both so close to true birth and also so far away from it. There's a librarian old enough to be will's grandma who becomes his good friend. There's two little boys who are such bothers and also such loves. I adored the scene where will and Elly dry them after they were stung by bees.
I gotta take about the birth scene. I know it was set in the 1940s so the science of it all is off a fair bit. For example, they are way hard up for cleaning and sterilising everything including Elly's vulva. Also the placenta is born before the baby breathes????? That is extr mely incorrect. But it also describes a perineum stretching and comfry being used to heal a perineum tear (which in my mind, on her third baby shouldn't happen if she was allowed to birth off her back but she makes herself birth on her back and even with her legs in stirrups! Goes to show that USA based removal of midwifery affected even unassisted home birth practises).
It's not a perfect book. It was very interesting but I didn't very much fall in love with these two. I also think their troubles (particularly Elly's family trauma and will's clear PTSD) didn't get enough time to smooth over.
Overall though it was a sweet book. I can imagine these two as very real people who continued to make quince pie and to let honey run while they had grand children and great grand children.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and War
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual content, Blood, and Stalking
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
thoseoldcrows23's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
slow-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
2.0
I picked this book up because it's my mom's favorite book, and to be honest I wasn't expecting much from it. Overall, this was a very odd reading experience. This book came out in the late 80s and I think much of the time you can feel its age. In particular its attitude towards female sexuality is pretty abhorrent. A lot of how this book conceptualizes women falls into the trope of the Madonna/whore dichotomy, and that's very uncomfortable to read from a modern standpoint. This is also unique, amongst my romance reading at least, because this is a romance novel that focuses primarily on the male perspective. Luckily I liked Will as a character, and he's not overbearing or alpha enough to make being in his head uncomfortable. Still, it was weird to be so separated from the heroine for so much of the book. Further, this book goes to a lot of dark places that I didn't expect from a genre romance, and it can be a bit graphic at times, which I wasn't necessarily prepared for. All of that said, I found myself engaging emotionally with this book much more than I expected. Spencer's writing it's quite beautiful and her character work is excellent (at least as far as the main characters go). For those reasons, I can't say that I didn't have a good time. I wouldn't recommend this to a modern romance reader necessarily (at least not without a lot of stipulation and trigger warnings), but I enjoyed my experience with the book, and, given that it's my mom's favorite book, I'm glad that I read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and War
Moderate: Fatphobia, Sexism, and Abandonment
SO MUCH SLUTSHAMING, a VERY detailed birth scene, brief scene with Mexican character that's...let's say problematic.
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