The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Pub Date: August 2011

Fiction (Adult)

336 pgs.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s The Language of Flowers has gotten a lot of attention of late, and after finishing the book this weekend, I decided it reads like a kinder, gentler White Oleander.  (For those of you not familiar with this title, it is a novel by Janet Fitch that follows a young girl through California’s foster-care system after her mother is convicted of murder.  It is scathing, heartbreaking, and one of my favorite books.)

The Language of Flowers is also set in California, and also follows a young girl who has grown up in foster care. We first meet Victoria Jones on her 18th birthday, the day she is to be “emancipated” from the foster-care system. (Read: she is no longer a ward of the state, but things will not get easier for her.) After a brief stint in a group home, she takes up residence in a San Francisco park, and plants and tends to a small garden.  Flowers are very, very important to Victoria–the only thing of importance to her, really. She is a student of the Victorian-era “Language of Flowers” that she learned from Elizabeth, the most significant of her past foster-mothers.  In a plot point a bit too far-fetched for me, Victoria beats the odds of her living situation and finds work in a local floral shop, becoming an apprentice of Renata, the shop’s owner.  Renata recognizes Victoria’s special, almost supernatural gift: she knows the meaning of every flower inside and out, and they’re not always what you’d expect.  (Yellow roses, for example, stand for jealousy and infidelity–not the greatest choice for a wedding!) Once Victoria starts recommending the right flowers to Renata’s customers, their lives start changing for the better.

In alternating chapters, the story of ten-year-old Victoria’s time with Elizabeth unfolds bit-by-bit.  Elizabeth was Victoria’s last chance to become adopted, and the year they spent together affected them both deeply.  They loved each other, but each one was damaged.  You know that their time together is not going to end well.  After someone else from her past shows up in her new life, will Victoria be able to face those painful years of her childhood?

Diffenbaugh keeps a slower pace throughout the novel; I would not categorize this one as “un-put-downable.”  I did put it down, several times.  However, I always picked it back up again.  Another online reviewer compared it to a fairy tale, and I have to agree.  But the reviewer also pointed out that it’s not like a Disney fairy tale, but rather a Grimm’s fairy tale.  Victoria’s situation is certainly hard, and she is not always likeable as a character.  But Diffenbaugh takes what could be a very difficult, gritty story and sweetens it considerably, and that in itself will appeal to many readers. Also, I have to give credit to Diffenbaugh for introducing her readers to the little-known Victorian language of flowers–I had never heard of it before starting this book, and it’s always nice to read a novel where you learn something new about an unexpected subject.  This will be a good novel for book clubs, because many people will like it, and others may not…but disagreement usually makes for the best book-club discussions.  Happy reading!

-Becky