The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman – 384 pages
Book Blurb:
In 1950s Quebec, French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility—much like Maggie Hughes’ parents. Maggie’s English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don’t include marriage to the poor French boy on the next farm over. But Maggie’s heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix. When she becomes pregnant at fifteen, her parents force her to give baby Elodie up for adoption and get her life ‘back on track’.
Elodie is raised in Quebec’s impoverished orphanage system. It’s a precarious enough existence that takes a tragic turn when Elodie, along with thousands of other orphans in Quebec, is declared mentally ill as the result of a new law that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages. Bright and determined, Elodie withstands abysmal treatment at the nuns’ hands, finally earning her freedom at seventeen, when she is thrust into an alien, often unnerving world.
Maggie, married to a businessman eager to start a family, cannot forget the daughter she was forced to abandon, and a chance reconnection with Gabriel spurs a wrenching choice. As time passes, the stories of Maggie and Elodie intertwine but never touch, until Maggie realizes she must take what she wants from life and go in search of her long-lost daughter, finally reclaiming the truth that has been denied them both.
My Review: 5 stars
The Home for Unwanted Girls was a gripping and emotional story of a young girl’s harrowing story in 1950s Quebec. I was immediately involved with the characters and was rooting for them until the end.
The setting of the book was such a breath of fresh of air as I was neither in war torn Europe nor anywhere in the states. Instead, I landed in Quebec and fell into Maggie’s story. Her story introduced to me to the animosity between the English and French living in Quebec, which adds a layer of complexity when we learn that Maggie’s mother is French and her father is not. Maggie is therefore a “mixed” child and finds herself unable to completely identify with one or the other.
Without any spoilers I can share that after Maggie becomes pregnant and coerced to give up her child, the drama heightens. Under the rule of Quebec’s premier Maurice Duplessis, all orphanages, previously run by the Catholic Church, are now governed to become mental institutions. This was just a revolting fact of Canada’s history that I had no idea existed. This is a case in point of why I love to read, I expand my knowledge bank exponentially.
This story is told from two POVs, one from Maggie, and the other from her daughter, Elodie, who is living inside this dreadful system. Maggie, lives her life shadowed by worry about her daughter ‘s outcome, while Elodie is still hoping a parent will come for her. There are many tear worthy scenes that will break your heart, so have some tissues on stand-by.
This book covers family, religion, rape, abortion, adoption, mixed marriage, Church vs. state, love, prejudices, mother/daughter bonds and interestingly – seeds. As I read along, I loved the irony of Maggie’s father as the seed man; it was oh so perfect. Seeds, planting, rebirth, growth, crossbreeding and caring for seedlings are perfect mirrors for Maggie’s story. Little did I know, that the author’s grandfather did own a seed store in Quebec and was known as the seed man. Brilliant that the author tied this together as also seen in the epigraphs.
With so much to discuss, this is sure to be a book club hit!
Quotes I liked:
The feelings inside her are too good, unfamiliar. There’s sadness, too, of course. This she accepts as the most natural, inevitable aspect of her life. Sadness lives in her cells, alongside her sense of injustice and outrage toward Sister Ignatia and God. These things cannot be transcended. They are as much a part of her being as her limbs and her organs and Nancy. But tonight there’s something else: hope.”
-“Maggie begins to drift off, lulled by the rain battering the windows. In that place between sleep and alertness, the name comes back to her. She whispers it into the night. Elodie.”
–I am your judge, and I judge not only your transgressions today, but all of your sins, as well as the sins of your parent.”
-“Much like the province in which she lives, where the French and English are perpetually vying for the upper hand, her family also has two very distinct sides.”
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