I had a hard time getting into this book. I thought the message was decent enough but never really connected with the plot or characters.

Thank you to the publisher for the ALC. One of the most beautiful coming of age stories I have ever heard.

I want to thank the publisher as I received ARCs for both the printed and the audiobook version. I started reading the digital ARC but switched to the audiobook once that was available and boy am I glad I did.

As a relatively new transplant to Florida, it's hard to picture the word Hull describes in this book. In the short time I've been here urban sprawl has been disgusting and it was interesting to harken back to a time when Florida was mostly rural. Not that everything was peachy--or should I say citrusy?--then.

Through a child's eyes we see how her father, a pesticide salesman, contributed to the declined health of his customers; we see how orange grove owners used to be king; but we also see how some of the bigger problems facing Florida today were beginning to take root.

Hull's mother and grandmother were both formidable figures in their own right and feature prominently in the narrative once Hull's father is out of the picture. As does the city of St. Petersburg, a city I've come to love, but wish I knew then.

I'm not really sure I would have finished the printed book, but I always love a memoir read by the author so that made the journey more comforting and enjoyable for me. My only complaint, which is a frequent complaint of mine is that the book did not delve enough into being a lesbian during these times.

4 stars

A fascinating & charming memoir about the writer’s girlhood in central Florida in the 60’s & 70’s. I enjoyed her many stories, especially the ones about her maternal grandmother.

[What I liked:]

•Anne & her family are interesting people. I was emotionally invested from the beginning, hoping life would work out for Anne, that she would find happiness & the freedom to be herself. I also was rooting for her father, who struggled with alcoholism but wrote her the most touching letters while they were separated.

•Anne’s maternal grandmother is absolutely delightful! I loved all of the parts that involved her. She seemed to really enjoy life & just be an all around cool lady.

•Reading about the orange industry—the trees, the fruits pickers, the hazardous pesticides, Aunt Dot’s fruit stand, etc.—was fascinating. You really get a feel for the particular time & place from Anne’s descriptions.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•Some of the chapters have slightly abrupt endings. The upside is that this keeps the pacing from dragging, but it also left me feeling a bit disoriented over a few of the transitions between chapters.

•About 80% of the book covers Anne’s life from age 6 to age 13. The remainder is about her adolescence, discovering her sexuality, her career, her relationship with her parents as an adult, & her parents’ deaths—it just felt like a lot crammed in at the end. Since I enjoyed the first part of the book so much, I would’ve liked to hear more about her adolescent & adult years.

CW: sexism, racism, substance abuse, homophobia

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

Through the Groves is an intimate childhood memoir from a different time and place. Anne Hull grew up in the 1960s in the citrus groves of Florida and from the first paragraph she transports us to her father's old truck, the dirt roads, and the smells of citrus all around her.

While the time and setting was beautiful and outside the experience of most readers, I found this memoir honest and relatable. Anne grows up with an alcoholic father and the tenuous marriage of her parents around her. When things reach a tipping point for her mother and father, Anne is thrust into a new set of challenges. She recalls these times and specific stories with grace, humor, and sincerity around the horrors of it as well.

Hull mostly focuses on her childhood, but towards the end we do get a glimpse into her years as a young adult. Fighting to make a way to and through college and then coming out to her family at a time when it was very scary to do so, Anne explains vividly what that time was like and ends the book with a sense of hope.

I'm so glad I read this memoir, the only thing I can say is I wanted more time with Anne and her stories, more about her transition to healing and adulthood. Read by the author, I highly recommend this as an audiobook.

This is a very good memoir. I live in central Florida so the local history interests me. I am also currently at Disney world so first hand accounts of the transition from orange groves and swamps to theme parks is fascinating. Anne’s family history is both heart-breaking and heart-warming at times.
I usually prefer to listen to memoirs for a more authentic experience but I think this one is better read. The narration didn’t work for me, sorry

*Thanks to MacMillan Audio and Netgalley for this advance audiobook for review

3.5 stars. This was an interesting memoir based mostly in 1960s Florida. I listened to the audio edition, because I can never resist a book narrated by the author! Anne describes growing up in the orange groves of her home state, and then the increasing difficulties she encountered with relationships and acceptance. I found the ending to be a bit abrupt, with no real "closure" moment or lasting revelations, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I wish there had been a deeper dive into sexuality and how being gay in the deep South impacted Anne. Overall, I enjoyed this short memoir and could relate to much of what the author described about Florida, as I spent my childhood summers there.

Thank you to Anne Hull, Henry Holt & Co, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for my advance physical and audio copies!

I loved the beginning of this memoir, but somewhere shortly before the halfway point, I started feeling like—where is this going? What is the point? Where is the queerness? The writing is lovely, and hearing about life in the groves was very interesting, I just wish this had left me feeling more full. Also that the queerness didn’t feel like a quick addition to add to the ending and that the same kind of time was spent with it as what was spent with becoming intimate with the childhood experience. Thank you Henry Holt for the ARC

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the chance to listen to this early release of Anne Hull's memoir, Through the Groves.
In this memoir, Anne recounts memories of growing up in the South in the 60s and 70s. It's a coming-of-age story, where Anne realizes her sexuality and how being gay doesn't bode well in the South.
My favorite parts were listening to her memories of St. Petersburg and central Florida, as my family and I are frequent visitors to Tampa and St. Pete.
I enjoyed hearing Anne's story and am grateful for the chance to listen.

Initial impression? So enjoyable! Highly recommend! Especially loved that the narrator was the author, it added something to the interpretation.
In this short novel, we follow Anne from her preschool days bouncing around in a dirty truck as her father inspects grove after grove of Florida oranges to her adulthood and coming to terms (sort of) with her lesbianism. Her upbringing was unique but also typical. As she describes a neighborhood Easter egg hunt, I immediately recalled my own neighborhood egg hunt and the same requirement of a group photo with all the neighborhood kids. The author engages the reader with a blend of relatable experiences and her own individual ones which are fantastically different and many very “Floridian”…
As a resident of the ridge described so well in the book, I loved the descriptions of the land, the people and the general ambiance of central Florida at the time. To this day, if you come to Florida at the right time of year the air smells sickly sweet from orange blossoms and processing.
The author leads up to her discovery of her sexuality in a clear straightforward way, but kind of drops the plot in the ending creating kind of an abrupt closure to what had been a leisurely stroll through the memoir. While some of the reviews note that the author comes to terms with Florida not being a place she can be accepted, I didn’t get that from the novel and I suspect that statement is influenced by the current unfortunate state of affairs. Or I may have missed that moment. All in all a solid 4-
The writing is so enjoyable and the story flows so naturally, all except the ending for me- others may think it was the right time for an ending - knowing that the protagonist had finally found a place of family, home and belonging.
I think this book is perfect for Sunday afternoon reading on the front porch.

Hull’s memoir details her childhood in Central Florida, a land, not of theme parks and flash, but of orange groves and her parents’ volatile marriage. Her mother, a native New Yorker, and her father a Floridian with deep roots in the citrus industry, come from very different worlds. Combined with Hull’s father’s alcoholism, this leads to the destruction of her parent’s marriage and her subsequent move, with her mother, to St. Petersburg. Hull recalls her growing bond with her grandmother and the increasing distance between her and her mother. This is a beautiful, moving memoir reminiscent of the Glass Castle