A Distant Hope (The Hansen Family Saga)
The “Distant Hope” in this book is supposed to be a cocoa plantation in Cameroon. In 1880s, the Hansens, a family of German coffee merchants, are unmoored after the suicide of their patriarch. After his death, his three sons find there were many more debts than they’d realized, and the single large villa they’d always lived in together was in jeopardy. In order to solve all their problems, they decided to shift the focus of their family business—coffee distribution—to include cocoa distribution. One son, Robert, takes his wife and two daughters to Cameroon to buy the cocoa plantation, one moves to Vienna to take part in the chocolate craze there, and the third stays in Hamburg to run the office. The family unravels on personal levels, though they become prosperous. Ultimately, a family betrayal causes the ruin of them all. This book is translated from the German, published in 2018.
At first, I thought perhaps this book was better classified as YA as much of the story is told through Luise’s eyes—the fourteen-year-old girl who moves to Cameroon with her parents and sister. However, her storyline doesn’t go anywhere. She was her grandfather’s favorite—which doesn’t end up mattering. She loves Cameroon and doesn’t want to go back to Hamburg, but in the end, a boy from Cameroon breaks her heart, so then she’s fine with leaving all of a sudden. While we have a large cast of characters to choose from, this is how each of their storylines feel. Details lead nowhere; development is shallow at best. The plot is a series of then-this-happened, then-this-happened. As the book wears on, it’s clear this is not YA due to the sex scenes, some more explicit than others. This book takes on complex subject matter, but does not deliver.
