THE HOME FOR UNWANTED GIRLS, by Joanna Goodman
HarperAudio 2018Narrated by Saskia Maarleveld
My Rating (out of 5)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Can-Lit at its absolute finest!
One of the most profoundly moving novels I have read or listened to
This story begins in 1950's Quebec, where people are divided between the French speaking and English speaking. Fifteen year old Maggie Hughes Father is English, but her Mother is French. The language tension even permeates their home. Maggie's Father makes it clear that he would never approve of a Frenchman for her, and especially not the poor French boy next door. But Maggie is headstrong and not one to go along without question, and she dates the handsome neighbor Gabriel anyways.
When Maggie's Parents discover she is dating him they pack her off to live with relatives, forcing her and Gabriel apart. Not long after arriving at her relatives farm, it is discovered that Maggie is pregnant. Being the 1950's, and her being a young, unwed mother, she was forced to give up the child to avoid scandal.
At this point the story splits into alternating narrations about Maggie, and Elodie the daughter Maggie was forced to give up.
Elodie grows up in the cruel and underfunded orphanage system, until a change in funding legislation results in things getting worse, as almost all orphanages are converted to mental hospitals, and all orphans within being labeled as mental patients. Elodie knows she does not belong in a mental hospital, but there is nothing she can do. But she dreams of someday finding her Mother or other relatives.
Maggie never forgets the baby she was forced to give up. Ultimately she marries, but the hole in her life that is Elodie's absence is ever present. One day she meets Gabriel again, and realizes that she still has feelings for him. At this point Maggie decides that she is not willing to live by other peoples rules anymore, and she is determined to take her life back and fight the system that seems designed to punish the mothers and the children they gave up.
The most heart-wrenching aspect of this story, is that it was based on real events. The cruelty of the orphanages and the conversion to mental hospitals is real history. How many perfectly healthy children were abused in these places? How many were never able to get over the emotional damage and/or the stigma associated with mental illness at the time? As much as this story is heartbreaking though, in the end it is also a story of human resilience and the human spirit, and the oh-so-often unbreakable bond between mother and child.
The narration of this story was excellent and did this deeply moving book justice. Saskia
Maarleveld was able to seamlessly move from non-accented English, to
French, to French-accented English seemingly effortlessly.
Happy Reading eh!
Christine
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