This is my first historical fiction read, and I must say Hannah's writing blew me away, pun intended. Reading about great disasters viewed from a personalized lens of few memorable characters is something I didn’t know I needed, and this book delivers plenty of it.

With the Dust Bowl migration as a backdrop, the story creates a vivid atmosphere of famine, poverty, struggle, and death. But contrasting this depressive big picture is the optimistic and poignant microcosm of characters. Characters who get up when knocked down and show grit and resilience on their journey to self-discovery and empowerment.

As the author notes in the end, this book inadvertently draws parallels to the pandemic nearly a century after the events of its story, and the one thing that remains timeless between them is the story of humanity, humility, and hope.