The Language of Flowers

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The Language of Flowers

By: Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Narrated by: Tara Sands

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The Victorian language of flowers was used to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it has been more useful in communicating feelings like grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

Now eighteen, Victoria has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But it takes meeting a mysterious vendor at the flower market for her to realise what's been missing in her own life, and as she starts to fall for him, she's forced to confront a painful secret from her past, and decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness.

The Language of Flowers is a heartbreaking and redemptive novel about the meaning of flowers, the meaning of family, and the meaning of love.

Vanessa DiffenbaughTara SandsMacmillan Digital Audio

Contemporary

Fiction

Friendship

Genre Fiction

Parenting & Families

Psychological

Relationships

Women's Fiction

Heartfelt

Fostering

Contemporary Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Parenting & Families Psychological Relationships Women's Fiction Heartfelt Fostering

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Spoilers ahead, don't read this before finishing the book (which I reccomend btw):

This book is amazingly written and I love how things are woven together in a way that's satisfying to discover. Sadly, towards the end I got so frustrated I hardly wanted to finish it. Some chapters were so interesting and kept me hooked, wishing they were longer. And then you have some chapters that are dragged out wayyy too long and were so monotonous that I had to force myself to get through them.

This book does not have a likeable main character, and I'm not saying that's the problem. She's a product of her awful childhood, but even with all the empathy of someone who has been in her shoes (even the same job) I genuinely found her very hard to root for at times. At least the payoff feels better when things aren't going smoothly, and her behaviour isn't unrealistic for someone in her shoes. But sometimes I just want a good story, not one that stays so true to realism you begin losing hope that people who have had hard lives can also have good things. So yeah, it kind of took away from all the great, wonderful things in this book and left me with a bad taste. I wanted the "win" to come sooner and feel better, not as an afterthought just to keep up suspense for as long as possible when I think we all knew how it would end anyways.

In conclusion, I think the author fumbled the ball towards the end, but otherwise I loved everything about it. The voice acting was great and really elevated everything too, I'd give 10 stars if I could.