The Language of Flowers

May 30, 2011
Diffenbaugh's affecting debut chronicles the first harrowing steps into adulthood taken by a deeply wounded soul who finds her only solace in an all-but-forgotten language. On her 18th birthday, Victoria Jones ages out of the foster care system, a random series of living arrangements around the San Francisco Bay Area the only home she's ever known. Unable to express herself with words, she relies on the Victorian language of flowers to communicate: dahlias for "dignity"; rhododendron for "beware." Released from care with almost nothing, Victoria becomes homeless, stealing food and sleeping in McKinley Square, in San Francisco, where she maintains a small garden. Her secret knowledge soon lands her a job selling flowers, where she meets Grant, a mystery man who not only speaks her language, but also holds a crucial key to her past. Though Victoria is wary of almost everyone, she opens to Grant, and he reconnects her with the only person who has ever mattered in her life. Diffenbaugh's narrator is a hardened survivor and wears her damage on her sleeve. Struggling against all and ultimately reborn, Victoria Jones is hard to love, but very easy to root for.

August 1, 2011

Cleverly combining tender and tough, Diffenbaugh's highly anticipated debut creates a place in the world for a social misfit with floral insight.

After more than 32 homes, 18-year-old Victoria Jones, abandoned as a baby, has given up on the idea of love or family. Scarred, suspicious and defiant, she has nothing: no friends, no money, just an attitude, an instinct for flowers and an education in their meaning from Elizabeth, the one kind foster parent who persevered with her. Now graduating out of state care, Victoria must make her own way and starts out by sleeping rough in a local San Francisco park. But a florist gives her casual work and then, at a flower market, she meets Grant, Elizabeth's nephew, another awkward soul who speaks the language of flowers. Diffenbaugh narrates Victoria and Grant's present-day involvement, over which the cloud of the past hangs heavy, in parallel with the history of Elizabeth's foster care, which we know ended badly. After a strong, self-destructive start, Victoria's long road to redemption takes some dips including an unconvincing, drawn-out subplot involving Elizabeth's sister, arson and postnatal depression. While true to the logic of its perverse psychology, the story can be exasperating before finally swerving toward the light.

An unusual, overextended romance, fairy tale in parts but with a sprinkling of grit.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from June 1, 2011

Diffenbaugh's debut novel opens on Victoria Jones's 18th birthday, which coincides with her emancipation from California's foster care system. Abandoned at birth, Victoria has grown up in a string of bad foster homes, except for the one year she spent with Elizabeth, a vineyard owner who taught her the meaning of flowers. Alternating between Victoria's brief time with Elizabeth and her unsteady attempt to face life as an adult with little education and less experience, Diffenbaugh weaves together the two narratives using the Victorian language of flowers that ultimately helps shape Victoria's future as she grapples with a painful decision from her past. VERDICT Victoria might be her own worst enemy, but her defensiveness and self-doubt as a foster child and her desire to live beyond what she was thought capable of will sway readers toward her favor. Fans of Janet Fitch's White Oleander will enjoy this solid and well-written debut, which is also certain to be a hit with book clubs. [National marketing campaign reflects strong in-house buzz; rights sold in 22 countries; Diffenbaugh will be a featured speaker at the May 24 BEA Random House/LJ Book and Author Breakfast, bit.ly/gOEPwy.--Ed.]--Mara Dabrishus, Ursuline Coll., Pepper Pike, OH

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2011
Abandoned as an infant, Victoria grew up as a ward of the California foster-care system and, abused and neglected, turned into an angry, uncontrollable child. Deemed unadoptable, she gets one final chance at a home life when she is placed with Elizabeth, a single woman running her familys vineyard in the verdant hills outside San Francisco. Days before Victoria is scheduled to be officially adopted by Elizabeth, a terrible misunderstanding violently tears them apart, and she is sent back into the system. Though the emotional damage seems insurmountable, Victorias time on the farm taught her that there were other ways of getting her message across. Finally forced to support herself, Victoria lands a job with a florist and uses her knowledge of the hidden meaning of flowers to gradually and fitfully make her way back into the worldone that will include a career, motherhood, and the personal forgiveness necessary for her to love and be loved in return. Enchanting, ennobling, and powerfully engaging, Diffenbaughs artfully accomplished debut novel lends poignant testimony to the multitude of mysteries held in the human heart.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)