The Garden

LOTS OF SPOILERS, I SUPPOSE!!!

Okay I know I'm probably one of a very select few who enjoyed this novella, but hear me out. I interpreted this book in probably a darker kind of manner than most people did.

Leina asks Angelo a lot of questions, but most of them remind me of questions that people ask who are still trying to find a will or reason to continue to go on.

Another thing I grabbed from this was that the garden isn't a real place that we can see in our current state or form, more like a “heaven” of some sort. Which may be why we never actually see the garden and why at the end her mother is calling her home. This also makes me think the garden is like a “heaven”:

“And if I don't come back?”

“I'll understand.” Angelo touched his heart. “I'll pray it's because you found whatever you are looking for.”

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I say a “heaven” because I'm interpreting that Leina mother committed suicide: “..My mother told me of a garden... she followed it to her grave.”

Which, in turn, would make the book become a curse because it's leading Leina down the same path but from a different kind of pain: “I think you are drawn to the familiar,” Angelo smiled. “As people, we all are. We go to what feels the same. Even if that feeling is pain.”

And lastly I'm assuming that Leina hasn't left her own home in reality. I believe this journey is more of a mental and emotional one than an actual trip to Brazil. I also don't believe Angelo is a real person but more of a spiritual guide that Leina has conjured up as a that last voice to keep her from following the same path as her mother: suicide.

Again I could completely be interpreting this in an absolute wrong way than Tomi Adeyemi intended, but as I've been dealing with my own mental health this is how I interpreted this story and in turn it made me enjoy it very much.