Bleak and timely portrait of the plight migrant workers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression through the story of a woman who leaves Texas with her children to seek a better life in California. Once there, she finds deplorable living conditions and unfair and inhuman treatment of workers, while her teenage daughter is drawn to communism and the labor movement.

Though perhaps overly long and repetitive, with a tendency to tug at the heartstrings, this is a good choice for those who like immersive historical fiction with strong female characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.

A few years back, I read Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale and was wowed. She made the story come alive. It was compulsively readable and emotionally charged.

When Hannah's The Great Alone came out, I was so excited to pick it up, expecting more of the same. The Great Alone was much less moving, much more forced feeling. It wasn't bad but it wasn't good, it leaned too heavily on the PTSD-Vietnam Vet angle and it just didn't payoff in the end for me. I chalked that up to a fluke.

When I received the chance to get an advance copy of The Four Winds, I had high hopes. From the struggle of the Great Depression and the Dustbowl, I thought there was a lot of material for Hannah to create another evocative and moving story. Unfortunately, I think this book misses the mark even more than The Great Alone did.

The Four Winds tells the story of Elsa Martinelli, from her young adulthood living in small town Texas, her time raising her children on a farm that is dealing with the effects of the Dustbowl, and then onto her trek across the country and tenure as a migrant farmworker in Central California.

There is a lot of "tell" and not "show" in this book. Every little thing is spelled out for you, rather than the story coming more organically from the movements of the characters. It feels like a first draft that could have used a little more polish.

None of the characters in this story feel real. Elsa is extremely self-effacing, always always always talking about how ugly she is and how she knows her parents and husband didn't love her enough. You feel for Elsa but you also want to scream "Wake up! Who cares about those losers?! Look at what you're dealing with here!" Loreda, her daughter, feels like an old man's idea of what a plucky young girl character should be like. She feels just as manufactored as Elsa but in the complete opposite direction. There's a constant call and response with Elsa and Loreda, from the very beginning of the book, where they are always meant to be mirror images on any and every issue.

The idea of communism as a response to the migrant farmworker plight comes up about halfway through the book. I see some reviewers were disturbed by that, which is pretty ironic considering that's how the ideas in the book are treated as well. I applaud Hannah for doing her research and inserting this historically accurate movement into the story but the way she does it feels forced. Elsa hates the idea of communism. Loreda is excited for the prospect--she's been checking books about communism out of the library with the help of a conveiently sympathetic librarin. Meanwhile Elsa just happens to be falling in love with the union organizer who wants Elsa to "be brave" and help him move the migrants towards unionizing. It's Norma Rae if Norma Rae was shocked by the mere word union, not to mention *gasp* communism.

I think The Four Winds is a timely story. If told well, I think people would really have empathized with the "othering" these migrants experienced, the financial devastation that people suffered, and glommed onto the idea that corporate greed pushed regular people to their breaking point. I get why Hannah chose to tell this story at this particular moment. I just wish she had done a better job. This felt like flat chick-lit rather than richly told historical fiction. I will most likely skip Hannah's next offering, unless the premise really grabs me.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a free advance copy in exchange for my review.

I have liked many of Hannah's books and this one was no exception. "The four winds have blown us here. people from all across the country, to the very edge of this great land...." Well, the winds mostly blew the "Okies," refugees from the horrors of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. For me, the strength of this book is not so much in the story telling, the journey of a strong woman and her two children who leave their dust-stricken north Texas home for California, where they struggle with poverty, horrendous living conditions, food that seems to contain no vegetables beyond beans, no fruit, watered-down milk, and salami and hot dogs, and back-breaking work for greedy exploitative land owners. The strength of the book is in Hannah's beautiful writing, her descriptions of the landscape that are so vivid I felt the dirt in my eyes, nose and mouth, and her portrayal of strong females - grandmother, mother, and daughter. At times some of the story stretches the imagination beyond belief, such as our heroine's treatment by her family when she was in her teens and early twenties, and the ending, told through an epilog, is rushed and more of an outline than a fully-told story. In many ways this is a beautiful yet flawed book that tugs the heartstrings and brings tears to one's eyes even when it is not fully believable.

4.5 stars. Oh my goodness, did I love this book! I was very hesitant to request the ARC because this is not a time period that I normally read about and I wasn’t sure if it would hold my interest, but Kristin is such a phenomenal writer, that I found myself sucked into the story almost right away. I am so so so happy I got this book. Elsa’s story, strength and resilience were truly astounding and because of that, so was her daughter Lareda. Every character in this book was just written so well and really pulled at your heart strings. Although I knew about The Great Depression and the dust bowl and the economic impact it had on our country from school, reading this novel truly helped me understand the hardships of what really went on. I can’t even imagine. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

Kristin Hannah does it again! This story, set during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, reveals the strength and grit of Elsa Martinelli. Disowned by her family and abandoned by her husband, Elsa leaves her in-laws failed farm Texas farm in search of milk and honey in California. Life in a camp and migrant farm work help Elsa and her children learn of things far more important than earthly possessions.

love this book. just like all this authors books. very invested in the characters. love the historical aspect of the story. learn something new! a must for any book club! i highly recommend this book!

Not an easy read, but wow. This one will stay with me for a while.

Written in sparse but evocative prose that reminds me a bit of both Steinbeck and Wendell Berry, this work chronicles the deep and prolonged struggles of a woman trying to survive the Great Depression and Dust Bowl in the Texas panhandle and California cotton fields in the 1930s. It is at times unbearably bleak, and the trials Elsa goes through never stop their onslaught while she desperately tries to find and save herself and her family. Despite the difficulty and heartache, I found myself absolutely invested in Elsa's outcome and wanted her to ultimately find happiness and peace. And while I didn't get the tidy happy ending I wanted (because who does, really, in life?) she does in fact find her bearings in a way that is deeply satisfying.

You might think a book like this would not be enjoyable during our 2020 environs of pandemic/illness/death in headlines replete with hopelessness, political entrenchment, and rampant job loss. And you would be right. And if you, like me, have found yourself primarily drawn to comfort reads over the past year, you might set this aside. But that would be a mistake. This is not a comfort read, but it is a deep testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is a love story and a survival story and a story of finding hope even when one cannot make a logical argument for hope. As Elsa's mother-in-law reminds her, "Remember, cara, hard times don't last. Land and family do." And she's right. For while even land and family can and do change with the forces of nature, illness, death, abandonment, or new love, the fundamental threads remain in our souls to bind us to the people and places where we are formed.

Kristin Hannah has done a masterful job in telling this story, and I am grateful to her for it. For the perspective of what people endured then, and for the contrast in backdrop to what people are enduring now. How many times in the last year have I looked around my small "starter" home and felt trapped, with my children who should be in a physical classroom underfoot and my spouse who should be at his office sharing space with me at the kitchen table as we try to cobble together work and school and supper on a tighter budget than I would prefer? But this morning, after finishing The Four Winds, I look around my home and at my family and at my bank account and all I can think is how Elsa would have marveled at the bounty and comfort of my life. This is not to say my struggles don't matter just because someone else in the world or in history once had it harder. They do. But perspective is everything, and I, for one, have found my personal worldview has fundamentally shifted a little upon finishing this book, and for the better. What better indicator than that as to a book's greatness?

From the preface to chapter 17, titled 1935: "We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure." - Cesar Chavez.

Thank you netgalley for the ARC. I have shared my truthful and unbiased review.

My parents, long deceased, grew up in the Great Depression, which profoundly shaped their lives. My life was not one of great privation or wondering how one could get through today, let alone tomorrow. This novel brings this era to life through Elsa, a deserted wife, left to raise two young children through some of the harshest times this country has ever faced. Her resolve to protect her family leads her to central California, on a quest to protect the health of her son. Life is no easier in California due to large scale immigration of swarms of people seeking a better life only to find the state and its citizens trying to stop the migrants in any way it could. This novel really led me to appreciate what my parents had endured, but also gave me insight into the first breath of rebellion among farm workers seeking a fair wage and decent living conditions. Elsa was a great example of the strong women who fiercely protected their families in the worst of times.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced reader copy. This is a heartbreaking, incredible story. As I read the story of Elsa Martinelli, I kept asking myself, it’s got to get better for her and her family, but it did not. Elsa and her family suffered enormous hardship during the dust storms of the 1930s in Texas. They left their family to go out west for a better life. Sadly, at every turn, Elsa and her family faced more difficulties than anyone should have endured. This is a story of resilience, love, the human spirit and how people face adversity. I really enjoyed this book; but it was a very difficult book to read. The sadness is greater with each page and the tears flowed. This novel will definitely be with me for many years.

The Four Winds is a quite depressing tale of a young woman and her family trying to survive the Great Depression, beginning in Texas, and then in the cotton fields of California. Elsa found herself pregnant and forced to marry the baby's father and move in with his family. Her husband leaves her to look for a better life. The conditions in Texas are horrible and the drought forces Elsa and her children to move to California to find work. What they find is an even harder life of social injustice and cruelty. The story has a bittersweet ending, but it took WAY too long to get there. I can't recommend this book because it's really a downer.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this book.

This beautifully written story about a woman named Elsa Martinelli in the 1930s. Elsa is a plain woman that finds herself caught in an unhappy life and forced into a marriage. Then we are introduced to the dust bowl. Hannah does an amazing job of describing the daily struggles of both humans and the land. This is an amazing book, so well written. But be forewarned, it will break your heart. Thank you to Netgalley for an advance readers copy for my honest review, I enjoyed every minute of reading this book.

Omg this was literally amazing. Considering there are so many summaries on here, I will skip that and jump straight to my thoughts.

I found this to be a very cohesive Kristin Hannah read; it gave a nod to her literary fiction roots while further exploring historical fiction. As always, she builds these worlds and characters that we love and want to protect at all costs. Told through two perspectives (mother and daughter) we follow this story of strength, resilience, and carving your own path in a cruel world. It's heavy and heartbreaking, but with that, I think she really encompassed the weight and struggle of The Great Depression.

I should note, this was not my favorite Kristin Hannah book (The Nightingale **sob**). But it's still five stars, incredible, and absolutely worth the read. Kristin Hannah did it again.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC of The Four Winds by Kristen Hannah.
A beautifully written book set during the Dust Bowl in the Great Depression. Elsa Martinelli is a very strong woman, but she doesn’t know it. Raised in a family that did not love her, she thinks little of herself. When she falls for the first boy, Rafe, to look her way, she finds herself pregnant and is discarded to the boy’s family. Elsa finally learns what it feels like to be loved in the home of her in-laws, Rose and Tony. However, Rafe doesn’t really love her as his plan to go to college was disrupted by her pregnancy. He fills their daughter’s head with dreams that seem out of reach. Loreda comes to resent her hard working, no fun mother and when Rafe leaves one night to head west Loreda can only blame her mother.

In very hard times when there is no rain, nothing grows and the winds blow, Elsa keeps putting one foot in front of the other to care for her family. When her young son, Ant, nearly dies of dust pneumonia, Elsa packs the truck with the 2 kids and heads west, leaving Rose and Tony behind, who refuse to leave their land. With the influx of so many Okies fleeing the Great Plains, life in California is no better however. Heart wrenching, at times hopeless, this is the story of a mother’s refusal to give up. Finding love, reconnecting with Loreda and Loreda’s regrets for not seeing her mother for who she was, this is an unforgettable story of love, courage and bravery.

Kristin Hannah's books usually feature strong women who go up against the powers that be. Despite impossible odds they keep going like the energized bunny.

The Four Winds has an extremely strong protagonist in Elsa, who has to learn to believe in herself. She has a childhood and young adulthood marred by a family who do not love or appreciate her. They do not even know her. So, she takes her life into her own hands and finds herself a family that appreciates her grit and her abundance of love.

When her husband leaves to go off on his own, she remains on their farm with her two children and his elderly parents. Together they fight for the land on their Texas panhandle farm during the Depression and the dust bowl drought of the 1930's.Shelley

When she finally has to leave too, she does so with her children and the blessing of her in laws and once again faces adversity after adversity. The example she sets for her children will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Kristin Hannah's writing is powerful and brings to life a time in our history that many of us know very little about. This book is a winner!

When I start looking for another book from the author of the one I am reading before I’ve even finished my book, I know I’ve got a winner. This book is so good. The story is about life in the early 1900’s. It was such a hard time in our great country. And it was especially hard for the farmers. Elsa is the heroine of the book and what a strong woman she is. The characters and the storyline are both very real. I stayed up late several nights reading to find out what happened next. I described the book to my husband and now he wants to read it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy for my honest review. What a great book!

This book sucked me in right from the beginning, and it was all I could do to not put my life on hold to finish it.

I don’t know what planet I’ve been on but this was the first time I have ever heard of the dust bowl during the 1930’s depression. I learned so much about this era and the true hardships that these poor souls endured. It’s unimaginable that people actually survived during this time period. I actually took the time to independently read more on this subject matter.

Mostly, I was overcome with the theme of a mother’s love for her children or lack there of. Elsa’s mother lacked love but Elsa’s love for her children was abundant. Jean’s love for her children. Last but not least Mrs Martinelli’s love for her son and then her unlikely and unexpected daughter in law. I enjoyed this remarkable theme throughout this story. Having said that, there is so much more to the story.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion. I can honestly recommend this one to all of my reading friends.

I was given the opportunity to read an advance copy of Kristin Hannah's new book, The Four Winds. I didn't know what the book was about, but come on. It's Kristin Hannah. Her books are wonderful. By the end I was in tears.

The book takes place in the 1930s, and follows the life of a young woman from northwest Texas. Elsa, rejected by her wealthy parents, marries a farmer and moves in with his family. The storyline follows Elsa and her family and how they deal with the Great Depression and the Dustbowl.

The Four Winds is absolutely wonderful. There is much in this book that can be applied to today's society. Another winner from Kristin Hannah! #TheFourWinds#NetGalley

I think this will be my top read of 2020. It is a historical fiction book which starts out in Texas during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. It is the story of Elsa and her family and the many hardships that they endure. Kristin Hannah does a remarkable job describing this family’s journey. I could taste and feel the dust during the dust storms! I do want to give away too much about this book but the courage and determination of Elsa for her family is incredible!

Excellent book. This was a very hard to read but at the same time hard to put down story. The hardships endured by the people that lived during this time make me ashamed of my easy life. Very well written, felt as if I was with them.

Hannah is consistently the best author I have read in the past 10 years. Even though this book is set 100 years ago, it is the most relevant to our present times of anything I have read recently. I normally do not read historically-set fiction, as I hate the roles women characters are forced into. However, as an independent modern woman, I could relate to everything protagonist Elsa was dealing with trying to care for her family and fight for her rights. I literally could not stop reading this book until I was finished. I am very excited to see this book’s release and share it with my customers!