2019 Book Review #23: The Woodcutter's Wife

A new to me author of a book I've seen on the library's "New Books" shelf and finally got around to reading.  Apparently the author has a reputation of being a writer of "books with heart" and he works full time as a Marriage and Family Therapist. He's also the son of a minister and leads a community chorus that performs all across the Southeastern United States.

STORY SUMMARY

Mary and William Thomson live on a farm in Tennessee during the Civil War.  Abraham Lincoln is President.  William has avoided joining the Confederate Army because he loves Mary with his whole heart and doesn't want to leave her alone on the farm.  Mary is a strong-willed woman.  She is not ordinary.  She works right alongside William as they cut firewood and make chairs to sell in the city of Chattanooga. Her nickname is "the Woodcutter's Wife". She has killed a bear with her bare hands and an ax.  She would rather plow a field than cook dinner.

One thing that pervades her spirit though is a horrible melancholia (known  today as depression).  She and William have had 4 babies who all have died before they were 1 year old.  They are all buried up on a hill that Mary has dubbed  "Bitter Hill" as she cries bitter tears often over her losses.

One day William disappears and Mary's world is shattered. She now faces the difficult task of running the farm, doing the daily chores, continue to cut wood and plant the crops all by herself.  Thomas, who owns and operates a general store in town and his three daughters, Francine, Emma, and Mary Beth, continue to help Mary out whenever they can. Mary and Thomas become very close. In fact, Thomas loves Mary and tells her so.

 Thomas and William were best friends for many years and Mary and Thomas' wife Anna, now deceased, were the best of friends. Thomas thinks William has died in the war.  Mary does not know what to think.  One day, a Confederate soldier shows up on the farm and tells Mary that William was kidnapped by the army.  He then tries to rape Mary but a black man appears and kills the soldier.  John is a freed slave and agrees to live  in the woodshed to help Mary run the farm. John is one of the kindest, wisest people Mary has ever met.  His life has been difficult as a slave and he is thankful to God that he is now free.

Meanwhile, one day they discover two little boys, Frank (a white boy of poor "white trash folks" who beat him) and Pete (a black boy)hovering around the farm.  Mary takes them in and Frank tells her how his parents abandoned him.  Mary begins to raise these boys like they were her own.

Soon, Mary's life takes another dramatic turn and life changes again. This time, Mary has to make a very difficult choice.  

What will she choose??

MY THOUGHTS

I really got hooked into this story from the very beginning.  It's a good read and somewhat fast-paced.  

The one thing I didn't like was that there were several errors...especially when it came to dates/details about time.  For example, at one point it was April 19 but it was also the day of Mary's oldest son's birthday, April 30th!  That's just sloppy writing in my opinion.  This kind of thing happened a couple of times in the story.

Also, there were several editing errors which has always bugged me.

The story itself is warm and will pull you into all kinds of emotions.  I particularly liked John's backstory and it really shows what life was like for blacks in the south part of our nation back before the Civil Rights Movement came along.  John was my absolute favorite character and honestly I think his character had the most depth.

I loved that the ending was going a certain way...until it changed.  And then I thought  " oh how sappy and predictable."  I was SO HOPING the author wouldn't end it that way.  But.....like many other Christian fiction books, that romance part was just too sappy for me to rate this a perfect 10.What makes me sad about the way the author decided to end the story is that it kind of is like he's saying "oh I don't want Mary to be stuck with _______ " (I won't reveal the ending in case you decide to read it but let's just say the special education teacher in me was disappointed).  One website calls this literary fiction.

I disagree.  It's more like romance with some drama and definitely sappy towards the end....the end is just too "perfect"....too "happily ever after. Sigh. And let's face it.  Life isn't like that.

However, there were several quotes that were just excellent.  Here are a few of my favorites:

"War places people alongside others who would never otherwise be so. But necessity demands they both put aside any differences they might have in order to survive." (pg 187 The Woodcutter's Wife by David Johnson, c.2017)

" That's because your folks had the wrong idea about God. God's job isn't to make things easy for us.  His job is to help us get through the hard stuff." (pg 307 The Woodcutter's Wife by David Johnson c.2017) 

"A wounded heart, over time, can become calloused, and I fear that happening to me, for the only thing worse than a wounded heart is a hardened one." (pg 434 The Woodcutter's Wife by David Johnson c.2017) 

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to some content)

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this an 8.