Winter Garden, by Kristen Hannah

Characters
Whitson family and others	The Snow Kingdom – fairy tale
Evan Anya Meredith Nina Jeff – Meredith’s husband Jillian and Mandy – daughters Danny -Nina’s boyfriend Vasily Adamovich – professor Maksim – Vasily’s son Stacey Koontz – Anya – waitress in Alaskan Russian restaurant	Petyr Andreyevich – father Zoyo – mother Baba – grandmother Veronika – Vera Petrovna Olga Prince Sasha Black Knight Vera and Sasha’s children: Anastasia – Anya Leo

For Discussion:

NOTE: All pages are from paperback edition of the book.

1. Was Jeff being fair when he left Meredith so soon after her father died?
2. Danny also wanted Nina to leave her family briefly and go with him to check out his job offer in Atlanta.  Should he have understood Nina’s situation better?   Does being married or not make a difference?
3. Why do you think Meredith and Nina could not communicate?  How could either of them have changed this?
4. When Nina was thinking about the fairy tale, she noted that the Russian fairy tales are different from the ones by the brothers Grimm in that the Russian ones “ended unhappily to teach a lesson.”  (page 174) Do you think a happy ending can teach a lesson just as effectively?
5. Which sister did you like/understand the best?
6. One criticism of Meredith that many characters agreed on was that she cared “too much about everyone else.”   Is it possible to care too much about other people and not enough about yourself?
7. In the same vein, on page 245 Meredith reflected that, “She’d lost too much of herself in parenthood to simply go back to who she’d been before.”  What do you think about this?
8. On page 250 Meredith reflected that she learned after her dad’s death that “Every choice changed the road you were on and it was too easy to end up going in the wrong direction.”   Aside from illegal choices, can you put too much pressure on yourself about your choices?   Don’t we learn something from each choice even if we have to change direction after?
9. Anya’s behavior during a play was mentioned several times throughout the novel as a negative turning point for Meredith and it was not explained until the end on page 375.  The play was Meredith and Jeff acting out Anya’s love story and she realized at the end of the story how painful that was for Anya.  Did you think this was emphasized too much earlier in the story and then glossed over at the end?
10. In general, did you like the story?  Was it an enjoyable read?  Did you like the writing style?

*****

First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com, wordassociaiton.com and barnesandnoble.com.  Click on the upper right link.