The Crooked Branch

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Ireland, the potato famine, Ginny will have to go to extraordinary lengths to protect and save her children. After giving “American Dirt” one of my few 5 star ratings, and then watching a two part discussion of the book on “Oprah’s Book Club” while the author was being used as a battering ram for LatinX authors, I knew that I was going to read more of her books. In 1691, she crosses the Atlantic to live with her uncle and his family in Salem, Massachusetts and then becomes involved in the Salem witch trials. Cummins’ prose flows so beautifully that it’s easy to get lost in the story and breeze through a whole chunk of pages without even realizing it. This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations.

The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins | Goodreads

The Crooked Branch is a story with motherhood at its core, how parenting comes with its ups and downs, no matter the time or place. Ginny turns in circles, looking for any trace of life, a single green leaf, a purple blossom, a breath of prayer. Majella and Ginny navigate motherhood with a fierce love that propels the story forward with intense strength.This is also a loving testament to motherhood and the bonds between a mother and their children, as well as the difficulties that can lie between them.

The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins | Diary of an Review: The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins | Diary of an

In fact, there is no necessary connection between the two; intimacy in itself implies only familiarity, not affection, let alone love. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson (29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to simply as Mrs. If this book had been just about Ginny and her children then this would have been a perfect book and I would have given it 5 stars.The last time I felt this way about a past-present story line was reading The Baker’s Daughter by Sarah McCoy. Her mother is so far removed from anything that’s real, rambling on and on about random things and never stopping to listen to her daughter, who is falling apart at the seams. Of course, this story is unique, but I’m certain mothers could relate to the intense emotions of motherhood. The 1861 book's five stories are Lois the Witch (124 pages), The Grey Woman (78 pages), The Doom of the Griffiths (52 pages), The Half-Brothers (20 pages), and The Crooked Branch (63 pages). While both stories held my interest and came together nicely in the end, it was Ginny Doyle's heroic struggles of survival that made this novel a 4 Star read for me.

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In alternating chapters, we follow Ginny Doyle, in Ireland in 1846-7, during the famine and Majella, her great-great-great? Majella, on the other hand, wasn't a well fleshed character to me, nor were the supporting characters in her story. Like many historical novels, this has a dual narrative and I really enjoyed both equally and cared about what happened to both protagonists. I really think this book would have been much stronger had it not had the modern storyline with Majella. Eigentlich, damit sie irgendwann Benjamin heiratet, schließlich sind die beiden Kinder miteinander aufgewachsen.In 2018 the book was sold to Flatiron after a three-day bidding war between nine publishers that resulted in a seven-figure deal. Determined to understand the truth of her heritage as well as her own identity, Majella seeks to learn more about Ginny Doyle's personal history - and discovers surprising new truths about her family and, ultimately, about herself. I really enjoyed Ginny's story, a suspenseful drama of young motherhood set during the potato famine in Ireland; however, her descendant Majella's modern tale of postpartum depression just didn't draw me in. Jeanine Cummins (born December 6, 1974) [1] [ failed verification] is an American author of Irish and Puerto Rican heritage.

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I even found myself skipping chapters that involved her, just so that I could get back to Ginny’s story. But as Majella continues to unravel the mystery that is Ginny and her Irish family, she forms a new connection with her mother, forges a possible friendship with another new mother, and starts to regain some of her sanity. Even before you come to care about Jeanine Cummins’ rich and intricately drawn characters, before you become enmeshed in her skillfully tangled plot lines about the hard and wondrous task of mothering children in times both catastrophic and ordinary…Before any of that, this is what you have to look forward to: the first page, Ms.

I could remember having some of the same thoughts as Majella when I was a new mom, but I bet I would have enjoyed her story line even more if I’d read it 12 years ago! The publisher later clarified that these were not death threats, but rather other threats made against Cummins, against booksellers hosting her, and against moderators participating in the events. Will this baby girl of a new generation allow Majella and her mother to bond in a way they haven’t before? Anna: I’m halfway through this book and am upset when “life” gets in the way and I have to put it down. How would Majella’s experiences as a new mother have been better or worse if they had stayed in Manhattan, or if they had selected a more neutral setting than the house where Majella grew up?