At first, I found this book touching and the garden imagery lovely. The author's family and climate for gardening are very different from mine, but there is something there that moved me personally, until I was about halfway through. Then I needed to put it down for a while. I can't quite imagine writing about close family, and always wonder how the rest of the family feels when authors do that.
She wrote about her mother's age in her seventies the way I thought about my mother's age in her nineties. However, I was prouder of my strong mother. I wanted the mother in this book to get a chance at rebuttal, and the same with the brother and sister-in-law. Reading this book became like spending too much time with a friend whose perspective is totally self-focused. I get to where I don't take the stories at face value, with my friend or this author.
My own garden is sadly neglected in some places, but the descriptions of this garden made me want to get after it, and plant some fruit trees, too ... but not right now. I could come up with my own gardening is life metaphors, while I am at it.
The mother was apparently a therapist of some note, but I don't know who. This book reminded me of the Eat, Pray, Love book, where I thought the author was a good writer in a way, but also kind of a nut. It's a little too much navel gazing for me, but some people like that sort of thing more than I do.
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