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A review by booking_along
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
5.0
Iwill not be giving a summary of the story because there are enough of those out there, so right away to my thought to the book overall:
This is a different kind of books. It is fiction, but it feels more like something that could be a biography.
It is very real in how it is told and how the characters behave and react given their circumstances.
I was surprise on how much i loved this book, because for one i do not really see the appeal of flowers in the way that most other people seem to. I just don't understand why someone would find the appeal in having basically dead flowers sitting in a vase on their table. But this book, the way that it is explained that each flowers means or could mean, what the meaning could mean to people and what it means when you get them, makes the entire giving and receiving as well as buying yourself flowers all of a sudden seems a bit more understandable if not to say almost appealing to me.
I love how the language of the flowers is explained and how the main character came to understand and speak that language as well as how she uses is throughout this book.
I also enjoy that not everything happens like she had hoped or wanted to but that she deals with it in a very real way.
I know that there are people that did not understand how the main character handled her situations or that they thought that she did it wrongly and because to did not like the book very much, but honestly i really enjoy books that show different people in different circumstances and how they choose to live their lives because of that. If you grow up in a family that loves you and gives you most of what you want -or in other words let say the very typical family and as normal as those can be- you will handle situations differently then someone that grew up alone in a foster system that did literary not care about you at all. That is just how life works. A person that grows up alone without family does not understand family. They understand what they do wrong and how they handle family situations is not "normal" and how others do it, but they do the best they can, just like every person does.
This book really shows such situation, the author writes about different situations and how difficult life sometimes can be and how some people handle such situations. It might not be perfect it might not be pretty, but that is life. And that is something that i love in this book. Life is not perfect, life is not always pretty or nice or how you planed or wanted it to be. But you have to handle it and life it and do the best you can, and the main character of this story does just that. She does the best she can in the best way that she can do just that. Does that mean that I -or any other reader for that matter- agrees with what she does? No of course not, but that is life as well isn't it? I honestly don't think that there is any person -your own self included- that always does the right thing at the right time or can give a reasonable and understandable explanation for why and how they handled something.
Combined with this very real and human characters, and fascinating storyline, the writing is so nice and fluent that makes it hard to but this book down. Once you started you get sucked in and have a very hard time putting the book back down until you are done. And once you are done you keep thinking back to it, wondering, wanting more and getting a deeper understand of the story and characters.
I just loved this book. It is not perfect, it is not for everyone alone because of the topic of the book and which topics the book handles and how they are handled, but i loved it. It was exactly what a good book does, it takes you into a different world, into a different life that you normally would never ever experience and for a little while you experience something different and can literally life in the shoes of someone else. It is hard to find books that do it as well as this book does it.
I really recommend this book to everyone that enjoyed different stories, that enjoy human characters as well as overall good writing and a fantastic storyline. If you like, love or hate flowers, this book is for everyone that likes reading, because they will find something -anything- in this book that they will not hate and maybe even find a book that they surprisingly love more then they would have ever though possible.
This is a different kind of books. It is fiction, but it feels more like something that could be a biography.
It is very real in how it is told and how the characters behave and react given their circumstances.
I was surprise on how much i loved this book, because for one i do not really see the appeal of flowers in the way that most other people seem to. I just don't understand why someone would find the appeal in having basically dead flowers sitting in a vase on their table. But this book, the way that it is explained that each flowers means or could mean, what the meaning could mean to people and what it means when you get them, makes the entire giving and receiving as well as buying yourself flowers all of a sudden seems a bit more understandable if not to say almost appealing to me.
I love how the language of the flowers is explained and how the main character came to understand and speak that language as well as how she uses is throughout this book.
I also enjoy that not everything happens like she had hoped or wanted to but that she deals with it in a very real way.
I know that there are people that did not understand how the main character handled her situations or that they thought that she did it wrongly and because to did not like the book very much, but honestly i really enjoy books that show different people in different circumstances and how they choose to live their lives because of that. If you grow up in a family that loves you and gives you most of what you want -or in other words let say the very typical family and as normal as those can be- you will handle situations differently then someone that grew up alone in a foster system that did literary not care about you at all. That is just how life works. A person that grows up alone without family does not understand family. They understand what they do wrong and how they handle family situations is not "normal" and how others do it, but they do the best they can, just like every person does.
This book really shows such situation, the author writes about different situations and how difficult life sometimes can be and how some people handle such situations. It might not be perfect it might not be pretty, but that is life. And that is something that i love in this book. Life is not perfect, life is not always pretty or nice or how you planed or wanted it to be. But you have to handle it and life it and do the best you can, and the main character of this story does just that. She does the best she can in the best way that she can do just that. Does that mean that I -or any other reader for that matter- agrees with what she does? No of course not, but that is life as well isn't it? I honestly don't think that there is any person -your own self included- that always does the right thing at the right time or can give a reasonable and understandable explanation for why and how they handled something.
Combined with this very real and human characters, and fascinating storyline, the writing is so nice and fluent that makes it hard to but this book down. Once you started you get sucked in and have a very hard time putting the book back down until you are done. And once you are done you keep thinking back to it, wondering, wanting more and getting a deeper understand of the story and characters.
I just loved this book. It is not perfect, it is not for everyone alone because of the topic of the book and which topics the book handles and how they are handled, but i loved it. It was exactly what a good book does, it takes you into a different world, into a different life that you normally would never ever experience and for a little while you experience something different and can literally life in the shoes of someone else. It is hard to find books that do it as well as this book does it.
I really recommend this book to everyone that enjoyed different stories, that enjoy human characters as well as overall good writing and a fantastic storyline. If you like, love or hate flowers, this book is for everyone that likes reading, because they will find something -anything- in this book that they will not hate and maybe even find a book that they surprisingly love more then they would have ever though possible.