May 2026 Book Discussion - Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

Grace.

Grace.

Sugar Cookie : GingerScraps Praise Team {Lead}
Hi everyone! welcome to May's Book Club Discussion thread!!
This thread will remain open even after we finish reading the current book, so everyone who wants to add any opinions can do so at her leisure.
1. To avoid spoilers, remember to click on the three dots

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2. choose "inline spoiler," and start typing your text. To me it shows up like a mask icon, but as well can show like an eye with a line through it.

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As all of you know, in this thread we can discuss anything about the current book. Please feel free to share your thoughts while you are reading or whenever you want, or as you progress in your reading, it's up to you, this thread is yours, so express all what you think about the book and reading. You can write parts of the text you're reading, and that you think are important to understand the plot, comment on what you think of all what you have reading so far, whether the author is easy or difficult to understand and follow?, how the plot and characters develop to your mind?, and if there's a quote you'd like to share, please do it.

Once again welcome, I hope several of you will choose to join us!
 
Have tissues on standby as you progress in the story...this book made me cry! Between the loss of their girls’ dad and the traumatic story of the mom that slowly gets revealed throughout the story, this book will get you. I loved how she framed it as a fairy tale. The characters are well written, believable in their strengths and flaws, and the story makes you grateful for your current life. I didn't know much about the Siege of Leningrad, and it's so heartbreaking. I really liked this book, and may look into other titles by this author.
 
@photocrazy I didn't read your spoilers yet because I'm only a few chapters in. I'm really liking it so far though. This is my 5th Kristin Hannah book, and I've loved every one of them so far. I've read The Nightingale, The Women, The Great Alone, and The Four Winds - all incredible stories.
 
I read this book a few months ago so today I re-read the last chapter and Epilogue.
I enjoyed this book and was so pleased for the happy but sort of sad ending. I knew all along that something must have happened in the mother's past for her to be so odd and not very loving towards her daughters. How horrific her past life had been. The book was well written in how in a sense she was revealing some of her past in the fairy tale style stories she told the girls. I was so pleased that Meredith ended up being with her husband and Nina was still with her boyfriend who must have really loved her.

I think I would read more books by this author and have added one to my wish list - The Nightingale as France is somewhere I would have liked to visit when I studied the language at High School.
 
I finished reading the book, and although the writing is well-developed and the characters are well-structured, there were plot holes, which I could overlook because I understand it's fiction, but, there was one in particular that didn't make sense: Anya (Vera) believing her daughter Stacey was dead, because that's historically impossible. To understand this, I'll briefly describe the Siege of Leningrad at the end of my comment, please do not read if you're emotionaly sensitive.
Anya or Vera suffered from post-traumatic stress and couldn't explain it, I was glad that she and her daughters were able to heal their relationship, and forgive each other for what they didn't understand, I was also glad that Meredith and Jeff gave their relationship a second chance and repaired their marriage. It was nice to read that Nina, Dany, Meredith and Jeff traveled and found peace and joy in life, they deserved, and Anya too.

What I learned from the book, and from any book about war in general, is that war isn't an isolated event or something that only affects a specific group of people, it's a global tragedy that affects us all, although the book only superficially addressed the issue of war trauma, the reality is that war trauma affects entire generations. These are called generational problems, and today many psychologists are trying all sorts of therapies to minimize the impact, which, according to estimates, is at least two or three generations, and without immediate therapy, it affects at least six to eight generations. It's not something that can be solved, as the book suggests, with just a couple of conversations, nor can the children of people with war trauma ever find peace easily, actually, they suffer emotional wounds, the most common being abandonment (emotional abandonment), which creates people prone to depression and with a sense of emptiness and loneliness, even if they have everything and are surrounded by thousands of people, they feel lonely and empty. I understand that a historical fiction book isn't going to delve deeply into the subject, but I think it's necessary to see the war(s) as global human tragedies and not like isolated events.

(super sensitive material follows that may emotionally affect the reader).
The siege began on September 8, 1941, and lasted about three years. In 1941, there was a bad harsh winter that burst the water pipes and left the inhabitants without water, and because wood was unavailable, so they burned everything they could find, from furniture and books to clothing. Since they had ration cards and couldn't get more food, some inhabitants killed people to steal their cards, hid the corpses, and some of them devoured them. Since the dead could not be buried, they were all piled up in a field outside the city, but according to some practice they made sure they were dead beforehand, otherwise they would be crushed to death, as dozens were piled up every day, not only from the bombings but also from starvation, so if Stacey was wounded, unconscious they will find she was alive immediately or they would killed accidentally, there were no another choice. Dogs, cats, horses, rats, and birds also disappeared due to the famine, and that people ate them too. It is believed that more people practiced cannibalism, but it could only be proven in 1,500 cases, and these individuals were arrested and tried. In the winter of 1942, Lake Ladoga (at the east of the city), froze over, allowing to receive food and aid, and some of them to leave (because Stalin's order was that they defend the city or resist but not abandon it, under penalty of death, so those who escaped preferred to risk execution rather than die of hunger or be killed in the city), and finally, the Red Army managed to repel the invading army in January 1944, and the human losses were estimated at 800,000 mostly due to hunger.
 
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Not familiar w this book or author. Thanks for the tip; I'll check her out soon.
 
GingerScraps said:
I put in the request at my library but still 2 more weeks until I will get it. What did you think? is it worth the read once I get it?
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Most definitely. I just finished this book and was amazed with the whole story. Like Grace said in her spoiler, war affects more than just those doing the fighting. This story showed the incredible strength it took for Anya to survive what she went through.

This was a little hard for me to get into, but once I did, I didn't want to put the book down. I am happy that the mother/daughter relationships were repaired by the end of the book. And that Meredith and Nina realized what was important to them and were able to live the life that they were meant to live. Plus, they got to be a part of their older sister's life and family.

What if Anya/Vera had responded to the letter from Dr. Adamovich when he first sent it. She would have reunited with Sasha and her daughter earlier, but how would that have impacted Meredith's, Nina's and Evan's lives.

Grace, when the bomb went off that separated Anya/Vera from Sasha and Stacey/Anya, they all woke up in different medical places. Anya/Vera in a hospital tent in Vologda and Sasha and Stacey/Anya on a medical train headed east. Anya/Vera was told there were no other survivors from that bomb plus she found a part of Stacey/Anya's coat with blood on it. Stacey/Anya said they went back to Vologda and looked for Anya/Vera, waiting for her to show up. But she had already gone, thinking all of her family was now dead.

I did enjoy this story and say "Thank You" to those that chose it for this month's book club read.
 
@GingerScraps definitly is worthy to read.

@pbhill I think I half-read that part and completely forgot about it, so sorry. Thank you so much for bringing it up because I reread it, and what you say is true. I think I should give it another star in my Goodreads review. Thank you so much, Babette, for your insightful comment and for being part of the book club.
 
I finished it today! I really enjoyed it, though it was heartbreaking and uncomfortable as well.
Spoiler!


As far as Kristin Hannah books go, I didn't love this one as much as the others I've read, but I'm still glad to have read it.
 
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