A friend from Texas recommended this novel to me, and it met my expectations. I had devoured three novels by Kristin Hannah, but The Four Winds was my favorite. I was emotionally vested in the main character, Elsa, from chapter one. Throughout the novel, I felt her struggles during the Great Depression and leaving the Dust Bowl of Texas for a brighter future in California.
I loved learning more about conservationism and not uprooting the soil yearly so dirt wouldn’t blow away during windstorms, leaving farmers without crop rotations. Through the eyes of Elsa, her daughter Loreda, and her son Ant, I experienced the hardship and suffering of this courageous family moving to California, where people wanted them to pick cotton but not become community members or stay.
If you enjoy journeying with characters and experiencing friendships and community with like-minded people, you will root for the strong protagonist, Elsa, and her family until the last page. If you enjoy The Women, The Nightingale, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden, I think you’ll enjoy The Four Winds.
