Evergreen - Book Review

From the cover :

From the celebrated author of The Bird Sisters, a gorgeously rendered and emotionally charged novel that spans generations, telling the story of two siblings, raised apart, attempting to share a life.

It is 1938 when Eveline, a young bride, follows her husband into the wilderness of Minnesota. Though their cabin is rundown, they have a river full of fish, a garden out back, and a new baby boy named Hux. But when Emil leaves to take care of his sick father, the unthinkable happens: a stranger arrives, and Eveline becomes pregnant. She gives the child away, and while Hux grows up hunting and fishing in the woods with his parents, his sister, Naamah, is raised an orphan. Years later, haunted by the knowledge of this forsaken girl, Hux decides to find his sister and bring her home to the cabin. But Naamah, even wilder than the wilderness that surrounds them, may make it impossible for Hux to ever tame her, to ever make up for all that she, and they, have lost. Set before a backdrop of vanishing forest, this is a luminous novel of love, regret, and hope.

My thoughts :

With exquisite language, Rebecca Rasmussen weaves the story of this ill-fated family and gives it the sense of a fable in her latest novel Evergreen. With the otherworldly setting in the Northwoods of Minnesota, the characters live out of time and place in their very rustic cabin. Yet, they can't completely escape the world and even their secluded lives are effected by others with evil intent and world events.

Rasmussen's lyrical styling and magical setting captured my heart from the first chapter but I truly fell in love with her kindhearted, naive and fractured characters. 

Damaged by others, the consequences stretch on through the generations. Evergreen is mostly a tragic tale. It squeezes the reader's heart with a gentle fist making one feel the anguish, uncertainly and loss experienced by the characters. Yet, there is a glimmer of hope, of redemption, of happiness and the chance to break the cycle of grief and heartache. 

After I get everyone I know to read Evergreen, I'll put in its rightful place between favorites The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey and No One is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel on my shelf. Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen is a lovely novel--poignant and graceful--unforgettable.

Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen is published by Knopf and released on July 15, 2014

**I received a complimentary copy of Evergreen.**