Book Blurb:
Victoria Nash is just a teenager in the 1940s, but she runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the ranch town of Iola, Colorado—the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land in the Four Corners region, who wants to believe one place is just like another. When Victoria encounters Wil on a street corner, their unexpected connection ignites as much passion as danger and as many revelations as secrets. Victoria flees into the beautiful but harsh wilderness of the nearby mountains when tragedy strikes. Living in a small hut, she struggles to survive in the unforgiving conditions with no clear notion of what her future will be. What happens afterward is her quest to regain all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River rises to submerge her homeland and the only life she has ever known.
My Review: 3.25 stars
Strangers by Belle Burden got so much hype that I decided I had to roll with the trend and dig into this memoir. Did the hype give me incredibly high expectations perhaps? Maybe. Either way, I found her telling of the events to be lackluster and missing the umph in the narration.
I guess unless we heard her husband’s point of view, we’ll never really know what happened to cause their divorce. Let’s face it, there are many sides to every marriage and often many varied truths as well. I definitely felt sad for Belle as she was so utterly blindsided. I can’t imagine the pain that caused to her and her two girls.
Yes, it was well written. Yes, it was full of namedropping far too many elite places and schools. Yes, it was raw and made me hurt sometimes. Yes, it was a very fast read.
Why it got so much hype, no idea. Definitely read for yourself and see what side of the aisle you’re on!
Quotes I liked:
And doesn’t it all look different, wouldn’t your own story look different, if you knew how it was going to end?”
“It was having everything I had counted on collapse so suddenly, forcing me to let go of the idea that I could control outcomes.”
he seemed to be reminding me of what we’d discussed many times, everyone has something. This is yours. Each life has a defining crisis.”
