Response 1

What can I say about love? Well, I'm not really sure how I would answer that question. I could try to describe the happiness it has made me feel, but also the sadness that has come with it.

I love how Helen Humphreys started her beautiful story with this question. Already she had me thinking about love: what I feel is the growing theme in her book. I knew immediately this story would be well written and enjoyable to read. Amazed at the great number of rhetoric used in the first chapter, I found I could quickly and very easily escape into this interesting, comical and sad story.

This story is set in the country side on an old estate during the war which gives the author plenty of opportunity to include description. The author does this by describing the ruins of the war and the overgrown gardens through the eyes of the main character, Gwen Davis. An example of this brilliant description is "...the hand. It pokes out from a pile of broken bricks, fingers curled slightly as though it has just thrown a ball and is waiting to catch it as it falls from the sky. A childs hand. I see the fabric still attached..." I have also noticed the extensive use of similes in the authors descriptive paragraphs for example "...the barrage balloons...lean the same way, like boats swinging with the tide, at anchor in the harbour." She so easily paints these detailed pictures in my head by relating certain scenes to ones I have most likely seen at some point in my life. In this case, it is a boat in a harbour, a scene I can not imagine anyone not knowing.

I really enjoy reading about Gwen. She is a great character in this book but I can sense she is somewhat of a troubled woman who is looking for love. It seems as though her mother has made her into the sad and slightly up tight woman she has grown up to be. Maybe this is because her mother would say things like, "At least you have beautiful hair," or maybe it was because her mother neglected to touch her in a caring, motherly way. Gwen tells us in a comical manner that the only time her mother touched her was when, "she rubbed [her] chest with liniment...when she spanked [her]...[and] when she slapped [her] hand away from the cakes at tea." Really, that is quite sad but I couldn't help laughing because of the way Gwen listed off bluntly the few times her mother touched her. On page 58, it became so obvious to me the impact Gwen's mother had on her. Gwen asks her friend Jane about how she looks and almost starts to cry because she feels so unattractive most likely because her mother never complimented her. But Gwen is also quite funny. I loved how she didn't bother to learn the names of the girls she was instructing. Instead, she named each one after a species of potatoes depending on how they looked or acted. Brilliant!

I feel like the main theme in this novel is love. I am not one hundred percent sure of this quite yet but I feel so many aspects of the book are built around love. Gwen's growing relationship with Jane, her obvious crush on the captain, and her love for gardening and nature all support this theme. Also, there have been many rhetorical questions regarding love. It is so clear love is what Gwen wants. She has left the city and come to this estate in search of love and I do believe she will find it. Her character is starting to evolve and reveal itself already and I can see something might happen between her and the captain: the man she keeps making eyes with. I am so excited to read on to see if something happens between Gwen and her man friend.