Charles Sheehan-Miles

When sixteen-year-old Brenna vanishes, her family falls apart. A disturbing and ultimately uplifting story about how families can sink into destruction-or be transformed.

Winter Flower

Ariel Himboi

Winter Flower was given to me in the form of a digital ARC by BookSirens, and I'm very fortunate to have come across such a strong book. 

TW/CW: Rape, drugs, underage drinking, underage smoking, pedophilia, sex trafficking, sexual assault and domestic assault, abuse, violence, all of which can be extremely graphic towards part two and three of the novel. Tread carefully. 

Winter Flower, the title of which that comes oddly into fruition at the very end of the novel and has nothing to do with the overall arc, was a strong book that kept me hooked and made me feel very emotional. Overall, the author was diligent in giving every meaningful character, each family member, important perspectives as certain events; such as the break of their family, the affair, the jail time and the violence from two timelines. 

It's not just about Brenna, the sixteen year old girl who went missing for two years. It was also about the father who had an affair, the mother who becomes an alcoholic due to the grief of her daughter, the distance for her younger daughter Sam who she does not know is facing bullying and the emotions of being a closeted transgender young girl, and the husband she cannot trust anymore. Simply, the family falls apart. When Brenna goes missing, the father assaults his daughter's ex boyfriend who, almost rightfully, deserved some sort of understanding that he was dating an underage girl of fifteen while he was over the age of twenty. He gets shipped off the jail and fortunately for him, he has a best friend who happened to save up thousands of dollars just to give to him and his family. 

The family before and after.

The novel starts off showing us a glimpse two years after. Then, backwards in time we go to the start, with Brenna turning sixteen. And then, things go horribly wrong. 

At first I could not put myself in the place of Brenna who made almost comically the most atrocious decisions I've ever read, hair pulling worthy. But again, she was fifteen and we all know we were that kid, thinking we were bigger, stronger and smarter than anyone else. Like we knew we were right about everything. 

Although, at times, it felt like she was TOO naïve. Regardless, Brenna's life more than upside down, when she disappeared.

Part one of this book is slow going. We get an idea of the liberal mother whose strong and fiery spirited and who loves and adores her family, though her husband less after his affair. We get an idea of the father whose republican, whose parents are set in their conservative ways, and both he and his wife fight constantly, thus leading their two kids Brenna and Sam to battle that negative space. 

It's at first about a family on the brink of falling apart. And when Brenna disappears, they do. 

Part two and part three gripped me, especially when we spent a long time in Brenna and Sam's perspective. First, let's talk about Sam. Sam, the the fourteen year old girl who admired her strong, punk sister who protected her. Although fearing that she would be outed to her school peers and parents in the south, at that time and this time it is still taboo to be anything but white and cis, Sam finds comfort in Brenna's presence, where she is rightfully respected. 

Sam is who we all used to be at some point. Stuck in our room, avoiding dinner, being moody. She's being bullied at school, her sister has disappeared, and her mother sleeps on the couch drinking wine rather than sleeping in the same room as her father. They went from being rich, with her father who moved up in his own company, to being... piss poor. 

Sam plays games all day and all night on her computer, and wonders if her sister will come back. Then, throughout the novel, we see her branch out, protect herself and her new friend Hayley, from violence and bigotry. We see a young girl blossom, to the age of sixteen, when she brings her father and mother together before and after they hear that Brenna is alive and they're going to bring her home.

Sam was a brilliant character. As myself being trans, although I didn't have the experience of knowing it as a kid until it was too late, I think many can relate. I thought the experiences she had were universal, caring, treated well by the author. However? There was a point in this novel where she experienced unnecessary, dramatic and traumatic violence that did nothing to further the plot, only for the benefit of worrying the reader into thinking it was a life or death. Now, this does happen in real life. The experience of transphobia is more than often life threatening and terrifying. However, the author did it in a way that served to say, "This isn't for the book, I'm trying to make a point by torturing this character" when, say, the bullying got to enough of an extent to exert the point. I thought the scene was... incredibly noisy. 

Nonetheless, I loved Sam's character and development.

Now, Brenna. 

Brenna went, as we all know very well, a bratty teenage girl to someone who experiences mental, physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Then, we see her heal. The scenes in which she had to survive, and live, and experience these things, was heartbreaking and true. The reality is that this happens to millions of children, teens and adults every year. Every day. Every breathing moment. It is the most terrifying nightmare and it's a topic most don't talk about. Brenna was an incredibly character to see throughout the novel, and I adored the development towards the end, the look into the aftermath of trauma. 

I thought Brenna and Sam were written well, kindly. This author took time into educating himself on these topics and I think they were done exceptionally. 

Now, onto other things.

The writing style is hard to get used to at first, especially the long info-dumps and character histories that lasted chapters. This is, by all accounts, a four-hundred and twenty something page book, and it feels like it. However, it's good.

I enjoyed seeing the characters from the family's past come to life, such as friends and relationships with relatives, the events of abuse being acknowledged and lead to justice, such as the young girl who gets away from her abusive father, the grandfather who stands up for his family and is there for the kids, growing from judgement to acceptance. 

I thought the characters, though slow paced, were brilliantly done in the end. 

I was satisfied finishing this book and I absolutely recommend to anyone who wants a thoughtful, heartbreaking, heart-attack waiting to happen inducing novel that will keep you up all night. I recommend having tissues every now and then to clean up the mess that will be your tears and snot. 

Although it is definitely not for the faint of heart, and though it may not be groundbreaking in any sense, I adored living it. These characters grow, protect, break, fear, commit cruel crimes, and yet they love.

I'm happy to have picked up this book, I look forward to preaching about it, and I hope you give it a chance and enjoy it too.

Winter Flower

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