One thing I can say is that Gilbert definitely can write. She weaves her tale expertly and even makes it sound like a 19th century novel. The amount of meticulous research that must've gone into this book, richly detailed with history and science, amazed me. The story itself is good, although I felt...
Had it not been for grad school, it seems unlikely I would've ever read any work of Elizabeth Gilbert's. All I had known of her previously was that her name was attached to a certain popular book that was of little interest to me. During a lecture at my first residency, Gilbert's TED talk on “genius...
When the book club selected a book from the Eat Pray Love author, I simply assumed it would be cut from chick-lit cloth, maybe heartwarming, maybe uplifting. When I realized it was a historical I thought, ok, I'm down with that. What I didn't expect was something to be quite so literary and scientif...
Our passions and our reasons determine who we are and how we see the world. The protagonist, Alma, is all left brain, scientific, analytical, rational and good at language arts. The two other main characters Prudence (good at poetry, dance, and music), her sister, and Ambrose who sees the world on...
The good:The mossy cover of the ARC I got was lovely. I don’t know why they changed it to a dark one or the kindle one that shows a woman going to the jungle. Despite how I feel for the contents of the book, that botanical cover was pretty nice. It fit the book perfectly.The life lessons from Alma’s...
I thought I had read other books by Elizabeth Gilbert but was mistaken. The book I attributed to her was by another author. I wanted to read one of her books because she is writing a blurb for my daughter's fiance, Megan Kruse, who has a remarkable book coming out next spring. Anyway, this was my fi...
This is an extraordinary look into the lives of the Whittaker family, largely through the experiences of Alma Whittaker, a large, ungainly, homely child, born in America, in 1800. Hers was the first successful birth to Henry and Beatrix Whittaker, after many losses, and she was the apple of her fath...
This is a hard book to rate, because it is chock-full of flaws, yet I fell hard for the main character. Alma is the only character in this book who is given any depth at all. Retta is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl ratcheted up a couple of notches (yes, she is every bit as annoying as that description sou...
Henry Whittaker was a self made man, a man who exacted a great deal of thought from those around him, quick of mind and eager to seize any money making enterprise centering on botany and the medicinal uses of said plants. His only daughter is Ada, equipped with an exacting nature and brilliant mind ...
When I see a book about a female botanist in the nineteenth century, I expect one of two storylines: either “woman fights sexism to pursue her dreams” or “unconventional woman finds fulfillment in romance”—or both. This book flirts with both narratives but settles down with neither, and is better fo...
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