Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Published 29th January 2015 by Fig Tree
Read in February 2015
The Blurb:
'I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. I will try to remember to come back.'
Etta's greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two, she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate and her best boots, and begins walking the 2,000 miles to the water.
But Etta is starting to forget things. Her husband, Otto, remembers everything, and he loves her: surely they can balance things out?
Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently- and he still loves Etta as much as he did more than fifty years ago, before she married Otto.
Rocking back and forth with the pull of the waves, Etta and Otto and Russell and James moves from the present of a too-quiet-for-too-long Canadian farm to a dusty past of hunger, war, passion and hope, from trying to remember to trying to forget as, from prairie to forest to mountain to sand, Etta walks.
The Review:
This book is so beautifully written and intertwines everything so wonderfully that I didn't want to stop reading it. After I finished reading it I literally had to just hold the book to let the story flow through me.
I fell in love with the characters and loved how we got to know their individual stories without being overloaded with detail and information which is due to the way the story was written and set out.
I also adored the relationships between the characters and how they developed as the book went on. Otto's relationship with Etta literally broke my heart because of how much the simple things, such as a handwritten recipe or a paper mâché animal, meant to them and how they were treasured so dearly. I also adored Russell and how his relationship grew stronger rather than weaker with Otto and Etta.
The only thing that stopped me from totally falling in love with this story was the fact that I got a bit confused near the end and I'm still unsure about whether or not I've truly worked it out yet.
Apart from that I totally adored this story and loved how much it makes you think about and appreciate what you have in your life no matter how tough it gets. It's better to surround yourself and treasure the memories that you have with people you love dearly than to focus on the not so good things and for that, I think people should pick up this book.
Published 29th January 2015 by Fig Tree
Read in February 2015
The Blurb:
'I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. I will try to remember to come back.'
Etta's greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two, she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate and her best boots, and begins walking the 2,000 miles to the water.
But Etta is starting to forget things. Her husband, Otto, remembers everything, and he loves her: surely they can balance things out?
Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently- and he still loves Etta as much as he did more than fifty years ago, before she married Otto.
Rocking back and forth with the pull of the waves, Etta and Otto and Russell and James moves from the present of a too-quiet-for-too-long Canadian farm to a dusty past of hunger, war, passion and hope, from trying to remember to trying to forget as, from prairie to forest to mountain to sand, Etta walks.
The Review:
This book is so beautifully written and intertwines everything so wonderfully that I didn't want to stop reading it. After I finished reading it I literally had to just hold the book to let the story flow through me.
I fell in love with the characters and loved how we got to know their individual stories without being overloaded with detail and information which is due to the way the story was written and set out.
I also adored the relationships between the characters and how they developed as the book went on. Otto's relationship with Etta literally broke my heart because of how much the simple things, such as a handwritten recipe or a paper mâché animal, meant to them and how they were treasured so dearly. I also adored Russell and how his relationship grew stronger rather than weaker with Otto and Etta.
The only thing that stopped me from totally falling in love with this story was the fact that I got a bit confused near the end and I'm still unsure about whether or not I've truly worked it out yet.
Apart from that I totally adored this story and loved how much it makes you think about and appreciate what you have in your life no matter how tough it gets. It's better to surround yourself and treasure the memories that you have with people you love dearly than to focus on the not so good things and for that, I think people should pick up this book.