What a gorgeous story! Every Word Unsaid by Kimberly Duffy is set primarily in India and just drips with dazzling imagery, and a main character who’s working so hard to find herself. Read on for my review!
The Synopsis
Augusta Travers has spent the last three years avoiding the stifling expectations of New York society and her family’s constant disappointment. As the nation’s most fearless–and reviled–columnist, Gussie travels the country with her Kodak camera and spins stories for women unable to leave hearth and home. But when her adventurous nature lands her in the middle of a scandal, an opportunity to leave America offers the perfect escape.
Arriving in India, she expects only a nice visit with childhood friends, siblings Catherine and Gabriel, and escapades that will further her career. Instead, she finds herself facing a plague epidemic, confusion over Gabriel’s sudden appeal, and the realization that what she wants from life is changing. But slowing down means facing all the hurts of her past that she’s long been trying to outrun. And that may be an undertaking too great even for her.
My Review
This book had so many moments that I wanted to bottle up and save for a time when I need something inspiring. I think a lot of people can identify with Gussie and what she’s going through. So many of us have had experiences where we’ve gone through these changes where we’re not sure who we are and what we want to be.
The descriptions of the Indian landscape, architecture and people are just gorgeous. The author clearly has the ability to capture sights, sounds and feelings in a way other authors can’t. It’s just an immersive story that I got lost in, and I looked forward to picking it back up every time I had to stop reading.
Like I mentioned earlier, there are a whole bunch of inspirational passages in the book that worked really well for me. Sometimes I can’t help but roll my eyes at that kind of thing, but it’s done so well in Every Word Unsaid that it just gave me the warm fuzzies instead of the eye rolls. If you read my reviews regularly, you might know I’m not much into books with too many warm fuzzies because they come off as too fluffy. This book was not overly fluffed.
I just wanted to crawl into this book and (after seeing the sights in nineteenth century India) give Gussie a hug. Her family is awful and she deserves every happiness she can find. As a character, I felt like I really knew her. She became my friend, and I rooted for her.
Every Word Unsaid is a book I’d gladly gift some of my girlfriends for Christmas this year. It was just the right amount of heartwarming and inspirational, without veering into big fluff territory. Gussie’s struggles are so relatable, which really helped my connection with this book. 5 stars!
