The Language of Flowers

I am astonished and a little appalled that I never reviewed The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh on this blog.  I picked it up, along with a white silk rose pin, at Book Expo.  According to the included glossary, a white rose means "a heart unacquainted with love".  I wonder if the publishers knew that or if it was just the most available flower pin.

On Victoria's 18th birthday, she wakes up to the smell of smoke.  Her fellow foster teens have lit her mattress on fire.  It is their farewell gesture.  Now that she is 18 she has three months to find her own apartment and a job before the foster care system cuts her loose.  This is how the book starts.

Victoria chooses non-compliance and homelessness.  She finds a neglected piece of land in a public park and she starts a garden.  And she finds a job, just in the nick of starvation, arranging flowers.

I love survival stories.  I can remember planning how I would live on a shopgirl's hourly wage way back in high school, when we rode to school on steam-powered busses.  How I would get food and clothing, where I would live - these were my daydreams.  My teen life was largely free of strife but I come from a large noisy family.  The idea of living alone, even at a subsistence level, was so attractive, especially when I felt put-upon and misunderstood.  So reading about Victoria's struggles to live off the grid was fascinating.

The book alternates between Victoria's struggles after her 18th birthday, and her years as a life-long foster child.  Victoria did something "unforgivable" back then and it haunts her.  And all through it, there are flowers.  Flowers are how she communicates with the vaguely familiar and very handsome flower vendor.  Flowers are how she manages to put her life back in order.

I read this book two months ago and I still think about it.  I put petunias in my front yard instead of impatiens, because of this book.  The former means "your presence soothes me"; the latter means - surprise - "impatience".  Which would YOU want on your lawn?

Diffenbaugh's novel is for the young adult or fully adult set, even though her protagonist barely fits the adult criteria.  Her descriptions of foster life are so jarring that I found them sensational.  I had trouble believing that one child could have had so many bad foster parents. (Note:  I read the ARC.  The published book may be different from my edition.)  Still, Diffenbaugh is a foster parent herself.  I am sure she did her homework.

The book's good points far outweigh my personal quibble.    Read about pain and redemption, hope and forgiveness and learn something in the process.  A good read!

Peonies!  Unfortunately, peonies can mean anger.  Sigh.

I have been interested in the "language" of flowers since reading Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes novel,  The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets.  These novels, written for the teen set but enjoyable for ALL readers, follow the adventures of Sherlock Holmes' much younger sister, Enola.  In The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets, the language of flowers leads Enola to a kidnap victim.

And last year at BEA, I picked up a copy of Forget-Her-Nots by Amy Brecount White.  In this novel for teens, a 14-year-old finds that her understanding of flowers comes with a magical power.  She uses that power before she can control it.

So find out what flowers can say to you - or what someone is trying to tell you through the flowers they give you.  Hope the message is fun!  Petunias, pineapples and poinsettias to you all.