The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman Published by HarperCollins on April 17, 2018
Genres: Fiction / Family Life / General, Fiction / Family Life / Marriage & Divorce, Fiction / Family Life / Siblings, Fiction / Historical / General, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Historical, Fiction / Sagas, Fiction / Sea Stories, Fiction / Thrillers / Domestic, Fiction / Thrillers / Historical, Fiction / Women
Pages: 352
Format: Audiobook
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Philomena meets Orphan Train in this suspenseful, provocative novel filled with love, secrets, and deceit—the story of a young unwed mother who is forcibly separated from her daughter at birth and the lengths to which they go to find each other.
In 1950s Quebec, French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility—much like Maggie Hughes’ parents. Maggie’s English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don’t include marriage to the poor French boy on the next farm over. But Maggie’s heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix. When she becomes pregnant at fifteen, her parents force her to give baby Elodie up for adoption and get her life ‘back on track’.
Elodie is raised in Quebec’s impoverished orphanage system. It’s a precarious enough existence that takes a tragic turn when Elodie, along with thousands of other orphans in Quebec, is declared mentally ill as the result of a new law that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages. Bright and determined, Elodie withstands abysmal treatment at the nuns’ hands, finally earning her freedom at seventeen, when she is thrust into an alien, often unnerving world.
Maggie, married to a businessman eager to start a family, cannot forget the daughter she was forced to abandon, and a chance reconnection with Gabriel spurs a wrenching choice. As time passes, the stories of Maggie and Elodie intertwine but never touch, until Maggie realizes she must take what she wants from life and go in search of her long-lost daughter, finally reclaiming the truth that has been denied them both.
I discovered The Home for Unwanted Girls through the Book Girls Guide In Case You Missed It Challenge. Everything hit for me from the synopsis and the historical angle. I’m not even a cover person, but the cover was captivating as well. Literally everything hit for me before I started listening. But then I did start listening, and well, it just didn’t connect like I anticipated it to. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good book, but . . .
The storyline was solid. Maggie’s life before Elodie and after. Bringing in Elodie’s story at just the right times to balance their lives as they each grow up and change. But also keeping that balance of their desire to find each other. Even capturing Gabriel through Maggie’s story. Side characters were fine, too. But it just didn’t keep me engaged. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it. Maybe because I didn’t understand enough the actual history and what was happening in Canada. Maybe because I didn’t understand the depth of the French and English animosity. Maybe because it wrapped up a bit too neatly for me. Or perhaps, it just wasn’t the right time for me to engage with this book.
I think if I had understood more about the politics, society, and history of this time period in Canada, I would have engaged with Maggie and Elodie more. (I do love that name, Elodie!) I want to learn and understand more about the situation with the orphanages to mental hospitals. This book turned me on to a period in history in a country I know but don’t ‘know’ so I have some homework to do. Anyway you look at the maybes it was a good book, and I do encourage others to read it. And I encourage myself to do some history and civic lessons about Canada and revisit it in the future.
About Joanna Goodman
JOANNA GOODMAN is the author of seven novels, including the new instant bestseller, The Inheritance, and the #1 national bestseller, The Home for Unwanted Girls, which was on the Canadian bestseller list for more than six months. Her other novels include The Forgotten Daughter and The Finishing School, both national bestsellers. Her stories have appeared in The Fiddlehead, B & A Fiction, Event, The New Quarterly, and White Wall Review, as well as excerpted in Elisabeth Harvor’s fiction anthology A Room at the Heart of Things. Originally from Montreal, Joanna now lives in Toronto with her husband and two kids.
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