Book Review: The Forgotten Garden
Book: The Forgotten Garden
Author: Kate Morton
Genre: Fiction/Historical/Mystery
Summary: A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book - a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell's death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. A spellbinding tale of mystery and self-discovery, The Forgotten Garden will take hold of your imagination and never let go. -Washington Square Press, 2008.
This book was good! I really enjoyed the plot and characters. It gave me some Rebecca and Jane Eyre vibes, so I was excited to jump in and find out what happened. Minor spoilers ahead so you have been warned.
If you don't like time jumps, this book isn't for you. It's also not the type of book to put down and leave alone for a few months, then come back to and pick up again. There are a lot of threads to juggle, so you risk losing them if you stay away for too long.
The plot lines themselves are good, though, if you've read books like Jane Eyre or Sense and Sensibility, you can quickly predict the stereotypical character types and plot twists. There's the aunt who doesn't want the wild, unusual relative to overshadow her own daughter, the young woman who is unusual and everyone is entranced by her, etc. That being said, there were a few times where I was pleasantly surprised by how the plot developed. Morton does take different steps to make sure it doesn't go the way you expect. For that, I was thankful. I was also greatly surprised by the link Morton creates with The Secret Garden, but I'll leave that for you to discover if you decide to read this.
I do have a few critiques. There will be some minor spoilers. First, the lack of explanation as to Nell's own daughter. Her daughter is just. . . "there". She's a plot device and nothing more. I didn't find any explanation as to how her daughter came to be, especially since Nell had broken off her engagement once she found out she wasn't biologically related to her family. Did Nell get married later? Was the daughter a product of a one night stand? As a reader, we're never told this, so I felt a distinct lack of development for both Nell and her daughter.
Second, the lack of development as to Cassandra's own relationship to her husband. Again, he is just there for the sake of Cassandra's own background and the reader is never given an explanation as to the nature of their relationship. Instead, he's just "there".
Third, we as readers are given insight into Eliza, the authoress of the fairy tale book Nell has, throughout several chapters. But, as her plot line continues, we're taken out of Eliza's point of view for the sake of seeing events from another character's perspective. I understand why Morton had done so, but I think she did it at the expense of fully fleshing out Eliza. By the end of her part in the tale, I felt like she was more of a stranger than a friend. In her efforts to make Eliza more mysterious and unlike the other characters in her time, Morton alienates the reader from her too. I don't consider that to be a good thing.
Despite these critiques, the book is very well written and the plot is still engaging. I enjoyed it very much.
I give The Forgotten Garden an A-.
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