“Crooked Hearts” is a book written by Lissa Evans; it’s a story of love, of loss and of survival during war. It represents the honesty in some relationships, in spite of the fact that they are built in the midst of the World War II in London, also known as the London Blitz. The main characters in the book include Noel Bostock and Vera Sedge. Most importantly, the inherent goodness in some of the characters in “Crooked Hearts”, by Lissa Evans, affects their growth in the book.
Noel, a ten year old, escapes London when the Nazis attack and consequently, finds himself in the Northwest of the city (Evans, 2015).At this time he already has lost his only family, and at the same time his god-mother, Matty, who dies from persistent illness. As such, Noel is sent to an organization that takes in orphaned children. Here, he meets the owner of the organization, Vera Sedge, a thirty six year old widow, and who is a bit twisted in her way of living. Despite languishing in loans, she takes on some very unscrupulous methods in order to ensure that she earns money, especially seeing as she is desperate. She takes the boy in even though she is least interested in protecting his interests, but instead, plans to exploit him so as to meet her selfish ends (Evans, 2015).
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Noel, though young and crippled, is quite educated and wise for a boy his age. However, he is very broken, having lost his family as he is now an orphan. Vera, on the other hand, though fairly older, is depicted as a directionless individual, in regard to life. Actually, she is described as a self-destructive individual in the sense that, though there are vast business opportunities for her to venture in during this period, she lacks the coolness to find the perfect business opportunity for her to venture in. She thus, chooses to team up with Noel, and they form a great team (Evans, 2015).
Vera is depicted in the book as having been a con- artist. She makes her money through corning people, as she pretends to run a charity organization that cares for orphans and which, therefore, needs funding in order to sustain its operations. However, she does not put into good use the money she collects. She also has a lazy son, called Donald, who earns a living by selling his body to the men who want to fail during their call ups, and a sick mother, Flora. By this time, Noel has become part of Vera’s family and in fact, Vera starts to treasure Noel more, on account of his usefulness in as far as making money is concerned (Evans, 2015) .
After some time working with Noel, Vera starts to record profits and business growth. This is made possible because Noel appears very charming in front of people. Besides, the fact that he is crippled entices people to donate money for the sake of their fake charity organization. This fact makes Vera attached to Noel, seeing as his help is now helping her make more money than she is used to. Additionally, Noel is very intelligent, so he always has a plan on how they can make more money. Noel, on the other hand, regains his interest to live. He now stops being the young sad boy who has no reason to live and suddenly, starts to have lots of hope in his life Evans, 2015).
The two formerly broken people are now seen to thrive better together, and they work very well for that matter. By now, Vera starts to view Noel as her child. However, during their normal money hunting escapades, Vera realizes that Noel’s life is in danger posed by the insecurity of the war torn city, and now, she has to do everything to protect this young boy whom she has come to like. The book records a shift in the attitude of the characters because now, Vera who did not at all care for Noel shows a lot of concern for him. In the beginning, she only took him in for the money but now she sees him more than that as he had gradually become dear to her heart (Evans, 2015).
Noel, on the other hand, opens his heart again by accepting Vera to be his family. This is quite a change because earlier, Noel was recorded to have been a sad boy and in fact, in his previous school, he used to be very cold towards his schoolmates, and knew neither how to love nor care due to the loss that he had gone through. The book indicates that the death of his god-mother, Matty, was a big blow to him because she was the next closest thing which he had to family and that’s why after she died, it was either he goes to Vera’s institution for care or to his ruthless uncle. Notably, he was more than welcome to bet his life on Vera’s institution since his uncle was a very mean man (Evans, 2015).
Vera is a character who has lots of goodness in her but does not know this at all. The book describes her as self-destructive and portrays her image to be that of a selfish corn artist who is widowed and has developed a heart of stone. As such, her only business is to take advantage of the war to make money. However, later on, she grows a soft spot for Noel, even considering him as her family. Even though all this characters stories go awry at the end, it is evident that all of them are not in the same state as they were initially. They are seen to have grown in different aspects of their lives and so this incidences that occurred were not in vain because they seem to have been shaped by destiny (Evans, 2015).
References
Evans, L. (2015). Crooked Heart: A Novel. New York: Harper Perennial.
