4.5 stars
The Home for Unwanted Girls is a profound story of love, secret and motherhood. Joanna Goodman wove a story with such intricate details and heart-wrenching emotions; it’ll stay with you for days after reading this.

Maggie is a fifteen year old girl in the Quebec province of Canada in the 1950s. There is a constant simmering rivalry underneath the precarious civility between the French and English speakers of Quebec. Maggie’s English speaking father wants Maggie to have nothing to do with the French, yet she is unable to stop herself from falling in love with a French boy named Gabriel. When she gets pregnant at the age of sixteen, her daughter is taken away from her and given up for adoption. Years later, Maggie is getting married with a successful businessman, her life is settled, but she can’t stop thinking about the daughter she had to give up. In the meantime, her daughter Elodie is growing up in an orphanage turned asylum, where the abuse is endless. After a sudden reconnection with Gabriel, Maggie makes it her life’s mission to find her daughter and reunite with her.

This book felt like it was written for me. This is the type of historical and literary fiction that I love and adore. It was almost as suspenseful as a thriller novel. It is one of those rare literary fictions that has both engaging storylines and fully fleshed out characters which will appeal to almost every type of readers.

The writing in this book was on point and matter of fact, yet heart touching at times which suited the tone of the book perfectly. There were no flowery prose or overwritten scenes. The pain and horrors that Elodie and other children in the orphanage face will break your heart, but these are not portrayed gratifyingly, as seems to be the case in many of the emotional novels.

The plot of this book feels familiar when you first hear it, but it is exceptional in its own way. The whole story takes so many twists and turns, it’ll be an emotional roller-coaster. I was constantly anxious throughout the book, rooting for the characters. The historical background in this book was fresh and intriguing. The dynamic between the French and English were fascinating. You’d never know Canadians were such dicks back in the day seeing them now lol. The story became even more interesting and meaningful juxtaposed with the socio-political situation.

The thing that makes this book from good to great is the characters and their relations. Maggie is such an interesting and complex protagonist. She is not flawless, but you’ll end up admiring her all the same. I loved the similarities and differences between Elodie and Maggie. The love stories within the book feel so beautiful and real. The relation between Maggie and her father is another thing that I really enjoyed. All the supporting characters are well written and complex and interesting. These characters and their relationships really take the book to the next level.

If you want an immersive historical fiction to get lost in, to laugh and cry with the characters that feel so close to your heart, The Home for Unwanted Girls is the way to go. Highly recommend it.

Very well written and had me wanting to read more so I read through it very quickly. I also learned something historical of which I was not aware. But it tore me up inside every chapter. It was just too much for me to say I enjoyed it.

3.5

This was such a good book. I loved the poem at the beginning of the book about the evil rose worm. In the morning I will edit this to include it. This book was about the orphanages in Canada that were forced to change into mental hospitals and what happens the the children as a result.

I loved it! Being an American I had no idea about this time in the history of Quebec and what had happened to orphanages during the 50s. This book was exceptional. I truly enjoyed it. I would recommend it to everyone as a history lesson and a lesson of enduring, motherly love.

heart-wrenching