Review of Garden of Hope
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- Michael Jerry_
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Review of Garden of Hope
The book starts with James and Annie. After losing their family and friends in the war, they get married and take in the children of their dead relatives as their own. Even though James and Annie are not rich, they do their best to raise the six children to be good and God-fearing people. Garden of Hope spans over decades, telling us how Annie and James raised their six children, who all got married and had children of their own; they made sure to raise their kids in the same God-fearing manner their parents raised them. James and Annie were firm believers of the Christian faith, and throughout the book, they remain devoted to their faith and even go as far as introducing people to their faith and converting them to Christianity. Read this book to discover how James and Annie turned grief into a garden of hope.
Cheryl Tirrell, the author of the book, has written straightforwardly with simple, easy-to-read words. The book has 148 pages divided into 18 chapters that span several decades, and you can tell that the author tried to fit so much about James and Annie’s family into the book without making the book extremely long; this made the book so fast-paced that you could have people just meet in one chapter, and by the end of the next chapter, they are married. While I enjoyed how fast-paced this book was, I’m not sure all readers will find it appealing. However, the book didn’t feel poorly done at all since the book had some vibrant characters. I enjoyed the brief recap of the life of James Running Deer and his family until his great-grandchildren.
While the character development was good, the dialogues weren’t as dynamic as I’d have liked them to be because they were brief, and I felt they were not as detailed as they should have been. The characters were also too many as I had to keep up with the names of James and Annie’s six children, their children’s spouses, their grandchildren, their grandchildren’s spouses, and even their great-grandchildren. The preface of this book was also about how the author survived a panic attack, and I wasn’t sure how it related to the plot of the book.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars because the things I disliked about it affected my reading experience. The characters were so much for such a small book. This made getting to know new characters tedious, and I always got confused about who was who and who was married to whom. This was even worse because despite having so many characters, there was little engagement from some of them, making them feel like afterthoughts, even though they were very much part of the family. I didn’t rate it lower because I liked the pace of the book and how easy it was to read. I also did not come across any misused or misspelled words, which makes me believe that the book has been exceptionally well-edited.
I’d recommend this book for teenagers 13-18 years of age and adults 18 years and older who are interested in drama or simple, true-to-life stories. People who are just looking for a short, easy-to-read book can pick this book up to keep themselves busy. Readers should note that Christianity influences this book, but it is, however, not overbearing.
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Garden of Hope
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- Mtibza eM
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- Christabel Uzoamaka
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