Loved it! 😍

Brief look into life in the late 1800's as a woman struggling with grief.

Synopsis

On a rocky island off the coast of Maine, a Hotel looms over the shore, an ever-present gray lady that stands strong like a guard. For many who come here, this island is a sanctuary and a betrayal.This is a place where memories linger like ghosts, and the ephemeral nature of time begins to peel away …like the sanity of all who have been unlucky enough to step foot on its shore.

In the spring of 1873, Isabelle gave birth to her son, he cried for three minutes, and then went silent. During the months that follow, Isabelle is drugged and lulled into a hallucinatory world of grief and fear. Her life feels begins to exist in a terrifying new reality separated from those around her …When her grieving begins to make her husband uncomfortable, he conspires to send Isabelle away to a Summer Hotel on Dagger Island, to "rest". While they are adamant that the hotel is not an asylum and that Isabelle will be able to return to her home, Isabelle understands in her heart that it is all a lie. That perhaps, everything about being a woman in this time, may have always been a lie.

All Isabelle ever wanted was to be loved, and a son, a baby of her own who will love her without judgement, that was her goal, that is what she is trying to make happen, only it was not to be. Her son came too early, he cried for three minutes then he was gone, and no one said anything to her. In 1873, giving birth was so much different than today, so little was known, but for some reason everything that could ever go wrong was always blamed on the mother, and that was were Isabelle found herself. Her mother-in-law kept her drugged, her husband ignored her and she was left to try to navigate her grief alone. Finally, after deciding she wasn't grieving properly, her mother-in-law and husband conspired to send her to a "hotel" for the summer. From Daylight to Madness: The Hotel by author Jennifer Anne Gordon is Isabelle's story of grief and enlightenment, her understanding of society and her fight against the norms of the day. This story made the struggles of that time period real and opened a since of understanding for me.

From Daylight to Madness: The Hotel by author Jennifer Anne Gordon is a well written and insightful look into the way woman were treated in the late 1800's. The so called hotel is like a mental ward, only without the stigma and without the kind of care that people really need. It was more a place to send someone to et them out of your life and keep them in a drugged state were they just existed. I found myself screaming at the injustice that was being heaped on the people at the hotel, because medical knowledge is so much better today than it was then, but at the same time I felt deeply for the residents. This is not a feel good story, but more of a real life story, this is what happened in that era and to read it and put names and faces to the people of the time makes it more real, and helps the understanding of the time period. It also makes me thankful for the advances in medicine that we have now, yet at the same time I cheered for Isabelle as she fought the norms of the times. This was definitely not my normal read, but it was so much better in that it called me to be more aware of the world around me and the way people have been and are treated.

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From Daylight to Madness (The Hotel #1)

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