The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Genre: General Fiction/Contemporary

Date of Publication: April 3^rd, 2012

Memorable Quotation: “I’m talking about the language of flowers,” Elizabeth said, “It’s from the Victorian Era, like your name. If a man gave a young lady a bouquet of flowers, she would race home and try to decode it like a secret message. Red roses mean love, yellow roses, infidelity. So a man would have to choose his flowers carefully.” (pg. 29)

Storyline: A+

Pace of the Story: A+

Characters: A+

Ending: A

Overall: A+

When women are asked what their favorite flowers are, most will name a specific flower because of its color, scent, or general beauty.  What most women do not realize, however, is that flowers have a deeper purpose than most recognize.  Each flower has a specific meaning, and the truth behind each flower may make some second guess what their favorite flower really is. For example, Chrysanthemums mean truth, Lilies mean majesty, Pansies mean think of me, Sunflowers mean false riches, and orphan Victoria Jones uses these messages to convey her deepest thoughts and desires in a world she feels shut out from.  Moving from foster home to foster home, she keeps a rough and jaded attitude towards the world until a few special individuals enter Victoria’s life and show her that the past can be forgiven and her flowers are the key to her happiness. 

Similar to Caroline Clairmont's talent with chocolate and the way she changed people’s lives with it in the film Chocolat, Victoria’s passion for flowers help bring out the deepest of people’s desires through the language of flowers that many have forgotten and do not take the time to acknowledge. (Towards the end of the novel, Diffenbaugh includes “Victoria’s Dictionary of Flowers”, which gives the reader meanings behind many flowers and plants that would make anyone look at and appreciate gardens and flowers in ways they had never expected.)

Victoria’s journey from a sense of abandonment to her own happy ending creates an amazing novel that will keep its readers entranced from the first word to the last, with the meanings of many popular flowers used carefully throughout the story to convey important subtle messages of love and pain. The bold characters that are introduced at crucial points in Victoria’s life are another strong asset to Diffenbaugh’s stunning first novel, as well as the many forms of love that are described throughout the book, from maternal love to romantic love.  The romantic scenes between Victoria and Grant, the man she eventually comes to love, are as beautiful and delicate as the flowers described, which is important in a novel that is based on a broken girl who must be handled with care in every respect, especially emotionally and mentally. 

The exploration Victoria makes to find herself is fragile yet courageous, a young girl whose most representative flower begins with Common Thistle, Misanthropy (Distrust of Mankind) but in the end turns into the Daffodils, New Beginnings, a small way of saying that it is never too late for self-discovery.

~Shelly-Beans