The Language Of Flowers
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS by Vanessa Diffenbaugh Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2013 Date Read: September 15, 2012 From Kirkus Reviews: “ 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 o