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The Great Alone

Published: 6, February 2018

Author: Kristin Hannah

Genres: Women's, Fiction, Mothers & Children, Family, Domestic Life, Coming of Age, Survival


The Great Alone was a phrase in Robert Service’s poem “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” in which he refers to the isolated Alaskan lands as the "Great Alone" and with this knowledge, you can guess this book’s story is set in the Alaskan wilderness.

I call it a formula novel, and something I noticed was the good and evil extremes because the good people were very good and bad people were really bad. But you are going to read page after page just to know what happens next.

The Great Alone is a survival story about growing up with an abusive and unpredictable father and surviving in the harsh Alaskan wilderness. The author creates a vivid and unforgettable picture of a family and a community trying to carve out a living and surviving in the wild. The meager yet active society she paints provides warmth and softens the harsh Alaskan landscape harshness.

I love reading survival stories and this is one that is in Alaska, where you are fighting against nature 24/7. As a result, I thought The Great Alone's early setup, which covers roughly the first half of the novel, was exceptionally effectively done. It's well-paced, with a continual stream of emotional ups and downs as the main family adjusts to their new surroundings and lives.

The tale darkens, the book becomes much more dramatic, and it begins to reach a repetitious note as the novel approaches the halfway point. I think it happened because of the way some members of these families were abusive towards other members and what happened to these abused people was the cause of this feeling, otherwise, it is an amazing read and I think the reader will not get bothered by all this because it is the part of growing up in many families. In the end, it is what you choose to become matters and not the abuser.

The middle had a bit slow movement but that is okay with such a huge book and I felt the ending was a little rushed also but still it was not bad. Some authors try to connect all loose ends and fix any remaining plot idea at the end to finish the book properly and that is in my mind, a good way and sign of an intelligent writer.


Synopsis:
“In Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, a desperate family seeks a new beginning in the near-isolated wilderness of Alaska only to find that their unpredictable environment is less threatening than the erratic behavior found in human nature.

#1 New York Times Instant Bestseller (February 2018)
A People “Book of the Week”

Buzzfeed’s “Most Anticipated Women’s Fiction Reads of 2018”
Seattle Times’s “Books to Look Forward to in 2018”

Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter north where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Cora will do anything for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. Thirteen-year-old Leni, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, has little choice but to go along, daring to hope this new land promises her family a better future.

In a wild, remote corner of Alaska, the Allbrights find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the newcomers’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own.”


Rating: 95/100
Recommended: 100/100 Yes.


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The Four Winds

Published: 2, February 2021

Author: Kristin Hannah

Genres: Women's, Historical, Fiction, Mothers & Children, Family, Domestic Life, Coming of Age


I found this book compelling and informative, it is about a woman trying to raise two children on a Texas farm as the fields dry out and unrelenting dust storms ruin everything in sight. People are packing up and leaving for greener pastures and jobs out in the West and all around them, but what awaits them there is uncertain as well.

The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah's previous novel, was about a family taming the harsh Alaskan wilderness. This book is another survival story but this time it is about a family in the Great Plains battling poverty and famine during the Dust Bowl in the years following the Great Depression. Both books are great but I felt “The Four Winds” is better than the previous book “The Great Alone”.

Start of this book kind of felt like a drag but gets better with every page. The author breaks you, then she is going to move you and make you ponder but by the end, she is going to heal you. What powerful writing and you can feel the research behind this masterpiece. For me, it was all about the original American dream of freedom because while the characters faced challenges they never gave up hope, they were full of willpower, tenacity, pioneering spirit, and above all, the love for family. This book is surely going to make many readers cry at the end and feel proud and brave.

The relationship between the main characters is going to remind you of your own life and relationships. I love a story that teaches you something important about life and sometimes it can actually influence the reader to change in a good way.

This is kind of an easy read but not for everyone because not everyone likes historical fiction but surely fans of author Kristin Hannah and historical fiction are going to love it. I am not a fan of these books but even I loved the book and story.

The story is sad and depressing but uplifting at the same time. Some parts may seem cruel or bad to some readers because of the treatment of women but understand, in that period lots of these things were considered normal. Like marrying a total stranger but that is how life was back then.

One more thing, some political issues may make some readers hate this book but my advice is to read it as a fictional book and not someone’s personal thoughts on politics.


Synopsis:
“From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.

“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”

Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.

By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.

In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa―like so many of her neighbors―must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it―the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.”


Rating: 95/100
Recommended: 100/100 Yes.

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Greenlights

Published: 20, October 2020

Author: Matthew McConaughey

Genres: Memoir, philosophy, poetry, Biographies, Religion & Spirituality, Men's, Self-Help


This is the first book written by the already famous and established artist Matthew McConaughey and it is not just for his fans. I think everyone needs to read this because it is a mash-up of many things and styles, he tells us about his life, his stories, his views and basically it is a man’s story that every man must-read. The reader is going to get a lot of lessons about life from this adventure that is an actual life story of the author.

For a long time I never even noticed who is the man on the cover of this book and what it is all about because I thought it is some politician and never read the name of the book and author until I was told by a friend to check this book.

I loved the adventurous life story about a man and his dog that was traveling and going on expeditions instead of living like other Hollywood celebrities. I think he is very open and admits a lot of stuff that many may never even talk about.

I know some people may hate it to the point of not even finishing it because of the way the author told the truth about his childhood and the things he was taught to do, I am a very open-minded person and I can understand that but some people don’t get it, because they never lived a life like that, so only hate it if you never lied, cheated or did nothing wrong in your life or your parents never fought. I think I already gave some points from the book by discussing this matter so no more spoilers.

I loved the audio version a lot because it was narrated by the author himself and you are going to love it also. I am sharing the link to Audible and if you are a new member, you can get the audio of this book for free with a free one-month trial of audible.


Synopsis:
“#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Over two million copies sold! From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN

“Unflinchingly honest and remarkably candid, Matthew McConaughey’s book invites us to grapple with the lessons of his life as he did—and to see that the point was never to win, but to understand.”—Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges—how to get relative with the inevitable—you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.”


Rating: 90/100
Recommended: 100/100 Yes.


Buy the book here:

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Any kind of support, even a simple 'like, thumbs up or a small comment' is enough and helps me grow, create and freely do more stuff and work on projects for the benefit of many.
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