TITLE: Leota’s garden
AUTHOR: Francine Rivers
PAGES: 807 (my copy)
Review
Leota’s garden is a book on hope. It starts slowly but warms its way into the reader’s heart until said reader sheds a tear or two.
Leota
Old Leota is a cantankerous person who complains all the time to the only person available to hear her – God. She’s the picture of that old hag who startles and scares off a child in their own garden when they see her staring at them through a window.
Everything in Leota’s house is old and broken but that doesn’t devastate her; what does devastate her, is her garden – Once a colourful embodiment of life and bloom, now ruined.
Annie
Annie runs away from home because she doesn’t want to become bitter like her mother, she’s desperate to leave the suffocating clutch that’s her mother’s love and follow her own dreams to study art.
Corban
Corban works to fill his void but only doesn’t realize the void he’s filling is a drum with no base; it’d never be full. When would he get a life bearing? Would it be when he pieces the clues from three certain women in his life ?
Its an intricately woven tale of how hurt and bitterness grows where there once was love and family; a replica, you might say, of Leota’s garden. It’s a tale of what happens when you learn to let go of your insecurities and live one day at a time. I cannot tell you what happens if you learn to live so, but this book does, and in unforgettable ways.
Francine Rivers is notorious for her capacity to highlight terrific subject matters in the easiest of ways; without shouting, she addressed the issue of women’s loneliness in marriages and the issue of euthanasia.
There’s the evident theme of forgiveness and embracing reunions; also of absolute surrender to God.
she incorporated humour that had me grinning broadly.
The characters are a whole lot and they’re all credible. If you’ve read the book,I’d say Susan and Sam are my cool people, and sweet Jeanne.
The writing style is informal and I believe a novice reader would have no difficulty as there’s no uncommon show of literature prowess.
Excerpts for you:
Then again, maybe she was being unfair to Corban. It wasn’t entirely his fault he was so puffed up with knowledge that he didn’t have a lick of sense. Education was no less an idol these days than it was in the past. Corban didn’t have her advantages. Sometimes the school of hard knocks taught more than the best universities in the land.
Leota’s convo with God always amused me:
Lord, is this why You put it in my head to get everything sorted out when I did? This is a dirty trick. I am not pleased. Not one-bit .
Leota knew the Lord was with her everywhere she went-even in that depressing hospital-but she had always felt His presence here the most. Is it because everything of great importance happened in a garden, Lord? Man fell in the Garden. You taught in a garden. You prayed Your passion in a garden. You were betrayed in a garden. You arose in a garden. I love this place, for when I sit out here, I see the wonder
of Your creation. I smell the earth and flower-scented air, and it soothes me. It reminds me that Your hand is in it all. For I heard the voice of the Lord in the garden, calling to me.
Who do I think will like this book? Try a person interested in inter-personal relationships!
I rate this book a beautiful 4 stars. You’re gold, Francine.