This is a beautiful and heartbreaking book about a dark period of history for many Americans.
Elsa lives in a family who doesn't really care about her. When she finds herself in the family way by an Italian boy, while not married, she is dumped on the boy's family by hers. She and Rafe marry and live on his parents farm.

Years of drought are a big part of breaking apart Elsa and Rafe's fragile marriage and Rafe abandons them. Elsa finds herself fleeing to California, land of "milk and honey" to save her son's health.

What follows is so much hardship, really showing how hard the Depression had hit the country. Though this book was started before the pandemic, it eerily rings true to problems today. Problems we saw in the country today are both different and the same. Some not even having to do with pandemic (prejudices and the like)

I felt for Elsa through this whole book. She does anything for her children. She perservers through all the hardships for them. She never sees her own worth because all her life, people have told her she wasn't worthy.

This book kept me in it the whole time. I felt those feelings expressed by Elsa and her kids right along with them. I felt the hardship, the shake from others who thought they were "the better people", and I mourned for the characters and with them. Fabulous book!