What a terrible book. I simply couldn't put it down (sorry, Alan, for that evening I spent curled on the couch with this book and a handful of tissues ignoring you and the kids).
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh has, in my opinion, two captivating pieces that make its storyline a success. Number one, the protagonist is a young woman recently "emancipated" from the foster system and the book tells her story by alternating between the past and the present. While I'm not always fond of her because of her choices, I think the author accurately depicts behaviors which result from attachment disorders. This is what our foster system creates when it bounces children from one home to another, from dysfunctional biological families to foster families to biological family to another foster family and so on. My gut reaction calls this a terrible book because I don't like to vicariously experience this life, (and it's not comfortable because it makes me think I should provide some permanence and security to children trapped in this debilitating cycle) but really that just shows how well the author crafted her character.
The second piece consists of the detailed application of communicating with flowers. While I am not a flower person--I can barely distinguish a rose from a carnation--this book makes me want to learn both to identify and to communicate with flowers. It was so very appropriate for an emotionally-damaged young woman to be able to express herself in this way and I was unreasonably tickled to find the author's personal flower dictionary in the back of the book.
This makes the second "modern novel" I've read in the last couple weeks that I actually recommend because it is well-written, has good characterization, is thought-provoking, and free of explicit immoral activity (not that it doesn't reference it, but it doesn't detail it). Rather shocking, isn't it?
Thanks,
Kristy, for recommending this one--it's much better than The Eyre Affair. (wink)
I read this one last year and feel like it should be required reading for people fostering and adopting older children. It is a yucky book but a lot of yucky stuff has to happen to children in order for them to be in foster care or an older child available for adoption. It made me understand...what RAD feels like for the person instead of just being the frustrated person trying to bond and love someone with RAD.
ReplyDeleteIt does deal with sex and I had one person from our orphan hosting group say she would never let her husband or teen read that book...I feel the opposite. If we had been able to make Di*na a part of our home permanently, I would have wanted to read that book with Michael and possibly with Nan.
Yes, I agree, I think it's good to have a peek into their head, so to speak to see where someone is coming from who has been through these trials. And I wonder if you are thinking of another book because I didn't think there was a lot about sex--I was afraid there would be more. I just remember her catching a couple kissing and then the not-explicit encounter about 2/3 of the way through. ????
DeleteI think it was the whole she had sex and had a baby not being married thing....I have to be honest, the lady who didn't want this "kind of thing" in her house or for her husband or children to read it (that is what she said) scared me. She obviously didn't really know what teens in this case Eastern Europe but in our own country's orphan care system also are not only exposed to but participate in. NOT EVERYONE does, we have fostered a teen who purposely kept herself sexually pure (more than anyone else I ever met!) because of what she saw and experienced in her homelife...that being said, she still was exposed to a lot more than I have been as an adult. Does that make sense?
DeleteI am with you, it was very mature subject matter but was written so well and obviously with great care that it wasn't sensationalized. I am writing way too much...God used this book to really made things "click" for me. I cried and cried through the book as certain things reminded me of one of the children or people in my life I have loved that this fiction was in some way their reality.
Ah yes okay now I see. I tend to be accused of sheltering or being overly conservative so it surprises me when someone else is more so than I am. Lol. I would say she is waaay oblivious to life for thee orphan if she found this very mild reference so shocking!
DeleteI totally get what you are saying and I cried too. (Hence the tissues! Grin)
“Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else.” I normally don't read fiction, but what stunningly beautiful book.
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ReplyDeleteThis is one of those books that stuck with me, despite the fact that I didn't really like it. It wasn't exactly a warm, squishy kind of book, was it? Yet it somehow felt important. I guess I'm still digesting my feelings toward it!
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