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Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings Paperback – May 5, 2015

by Sue Monk Kidd (Author)

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From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees and the forthcoming novel The Book of Longings, a novel about two unforgettable American women.

Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world.

Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.

As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.

Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.

This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Books
Publication date

May 5, 2015
Dimensions

0.7 x 5 x 7.7 inches
ISBN-10

0143121707
ISBN-13

978-0143121701
Lexile measure

920L
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I’d chosen the regret I could live with best, that’s all. I’d chosen the life I belonged to.
Highlighted by 2,252 Kindle readers
My aspiration to become a jurist had been laid to rest in the Graveyard of Failed Hopes, an all-female establishment.
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There’s no pain on earth that doesn’t crave a benevolent witness.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Invention of Wings

“A remarkable novel that heightened my sense of what it meant to be a woman – slave or free . . a conversation changer.” – Oprah Winfrey, O, The Oprah Magazine

“Exhilarating. . .powerful. . .By humanizing these formidable women, The Invention of Wings furthers our essential understanding of what has happened among us as Americans – and why it still matters.” – The Washington Post

“A textured masterpiece, quietly yet powerfully poking our consciences and our consciousness . . . leaves us feeling uplifted and hopeful.” – NPR

“A searing and soaring story of two women bound together as mistress and slave.” – USA Today

“Kidd has managed to avoid both condescension and cliché, creating an unforgettable character in the slave Handful, the emotional core of her utterly engaging third novel.” – The Boston Globe

“If this isn’t an American classic-to-be, I don’t know what is. . .this book is as close to perfect as any I’ve ever read.” – The Dallas Morning News

“A powerful story of rebellion and heroism. . .The remarkable courage and hope found in The Invention of Wings is a reminder that we all have those wings – and tells us a lot more about how we got them.” – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Kidd has done a marvelous job of capturing two special and vibrant voices. . . I can’t recall reading a book about slavery that presented in such vivid and heartbreaking detail just what the daily life and labor felt like.” – The Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A total revelation. . .the book is balanced by two extraordinary women: real-life abolitionist and feminist Sarah Grimké and the imagined handmaiden Handful, who nearly leaps off every page.” – Patrick Bass, Essence

About the Author

Sue Monk Kidd is the award-winning and bestselling author of the novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair. She is also the author of several acclaimed memoirs, including the New York Times bestseller Traveling with Pomegranates, written with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. She lives in Florida.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Part One November
1803–February 1805

Sarah Grimké

My eleventh birthday began with Mother promoting me from the nursery. For a year I’d longed to escape the porcelain dolls, tops, and tiny tea sets strewn across the floor, the small beds lined up in a row, the whole glut and bedlam of the place, but now that the day had come, I balked at the threshold of my new room. It was paneled with darkness and emanated the smell of my brother—all things smoky and leather. The oak canopy and red velvet valance of the bedstead was so towering it seemed closer to the ceiling than the floor. I couldn’t move for dread of living alone in such an enormous, overweening space.
Drawing a breath, I flung myself across the door sill. That was the artless way I navigated the hurdles of girlhood. Everyone thought I was a plucky girl, but in truth, I wasn’t as fearless as everyone assumed. I had the temperament of a tortoise. Whatever dread, fright, or bump appeared in my path, I wanted nothing more than to drop in my tracks and hide. If you must err, do so on the side of audacity. That was the little slogan I’d devised for myself. For some time now, it had helped me to hurl myself over door sills.
That morning was full of cold, bright wind pouring off the Atlantic and clouds blowing like windsocks. For a moment, I stood just inside the room listening to the saber-fronds on the palmettos clatter around the house. The eaves of the piazza hissed. The porch swing groaned on its chains. Downstairs in the warming kitchen, Mother had the slaves pulling out Chinese tureens and Wedgwood cups, preparing for my birthday party. Her maid Cindie had spent hours wetting and fastening Mother’s wig with paper and curlers and the sour smell of it baking had nosed all the way up the stairs. I watched as Binah, the nursery mauma, tucked my clothes into the heavy old wardrobe, recalling how she used a fire poke to rock Charles’ cradle, her cowrie shell bracelets rattling along her arms while she terrified us with tales of the Booga Hag—an old woman who rode about on a broom and sucked the breath from bad children. I would miss Binah. And sweet Anna, who slept with her thumb in her mouth. Ben and Henry, who jumped like banshees until their mattresses erupted with geysers of goose feathers, and little Eliza, who had a habit of slipping into my bed to hide from the Booga’s nightly reign of terror.
Of course, I should’ve graduated from the nursery long ago, but I’d been forced to wait for John to go away to college. Our three-storied house was one of the grandest in Charleston, but it lacked enough bedrooms, considering how . . . well, fruitful Mother was. There were ten of us: John, Thomas, Mary, Frederick, and myself, followed by the nursery dwellers—Anna, Eliza, Ben, Henry, and baby Charles. I was the middle one, the one Mother called different and Father called remarkable, the one with the carroty hair and the freckles, whole constellations of them. My brothers had once traced Orion, the Dipper, and Ursa Major on my cheeks and forehead with charcoal, connecting the bright red specks, and I hadn’t minded—I’d been their whole sky for hours.
Everyone said I was Father’s favorite. I don’t know whether he preferred me or pitied me, but he was certainly my favorite. He was a judge on South Carolina’s highest court and at the top of the planter class, the group Charleston claimed as its elite. He’d fought with General Washington and been taken prisoner by the British. He was too modest to speak of these things— for that, he had Mother.
Her name was Mary, and there ends any resemblance to the mother of our Lord. She was descended from the first families of Charleston, that little company of Lords that King Charles had sent over to establish the city. She worked this into conversations so tirelessly we no longer made the time or effort to roll our eyes. Besides governing the house, a host of children, and fourteen slaves, she kept up a round of social and religious duties that would’ve worn out the queens and saints of Europe.
When I was being forgiving, I said that my mother was simply exhausted. I suspected, though, she was simply mean. When Binah finished arranging my hair combs and ribbons on the lavish Hepplewhite atop my new dressing table, she turned to me, and I must have looked forsaken standing there because she clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and said, “Poor Miss Sarah.”
I did so despise the attachment of Poor to my name. Binah had been muttering Poor Miss Sarah like an incantation since I was four. "

It’s my earliest memory: arranging my brother’s marbles into words. It is summer, and I am beneath the oak that stands in the back corner of the work yard. Thomas, ten, whom I love above all the others, has taught me nine words: SARAH, GIRL, BOY, GO, STOP, JUMP, RUN, UP, DOWN. He has written them on a parchment and given me a pouch of forty-eight glass marbles with which to spell them out, enough to shape two words at a time. I arrange the marbles in the dirt, copying Thomas’ inked words. Sarah Go. Boy Run. Girl Jump. I work as fast as I can. Binah will come soon looking for me.
It’s Mother, however, who descends the back steps into the yard. Binah and the other house slaves are clumped behind her, moving with cautious, synchronized steps as if they’re a single creature, a centipede crossing an unprotected space. I sense the shadow that hovers over them in the air, some devouring dread, and I crawl back into the green-black gloom of the tree.
The slaves stare at Mother’s back, which is straight and without give. She turns and admonishes them. “You are lagging. Quickly now, let us be done with this.”
As she speaks, an older slave, Rosetta, is dragged from the cow house, dragged by a man, a yard slave. She fights, clawing at his face. Mother watches, impassive.
He ties Rosetta’s hands to the corner column of the kitchen house porch. She looks over her shoulder and begs. Missus, please. Missus. Missus. Please. She begs even as the man lashes her with his whip.
Her dress is cotton, a pale yellow color. I stare transfixed as the back of it sprouts blood, blooms of red that open like petals. I cannot reconcile the savagery of the blows with the mellifluous way she keens or the beauty of the roses coiling along the trellis of her spine. Someone counts the lashes—is it Mother? Six, seven.
The scourging continues, but Rosetta stops wailing and sinks against the porch rail. Nine, ten. My eyes look away. They follow a black ant traveling the far reaches beneath the tree—the mountainous roots and forested mosses, the endless perils—and in my head I say the words I fashioned earlier. Boy Run. Girl Jump. Sarah Go.
Thirteen. Fourteen . . . I bolt from the shadows, past the man who now coils his whip, job well done, past Rosetta hanging by her hands in a heap. As I bound up the back steps into the house, Mother calls to me, and Binah reaches to scoop me up, but I escape them, thrashing along the main passage, out the front door, where I break blindly for the wharves.
I don’t remember the rest with clarity, only that I find myself wandering across the gangplank of a sailing vessel, sobbing, stumbling over a turban of rope. A kind man with a beard and a dark cap asks what I want. I plead with him, Sarah Go.
Binah chases me, though I’m unaware of her until she pulls me into her arms and coos, “Poor Miss Sarah, poor Miss Sarah.” Like a decree, a proclamation, a prophecy.
When I arrive home, I am a muss of snot, tears, yard dirt, and harbor filth. Mother holds me against her, rears back and gives me an incensed shake, then clasps me again. “You must promise never to run away again. Promise me.”
I want to. I try to. The words are on my tongue—the rounded lumps of them, shining like the marbles beneath the tree.
“Sarah!” she demands.
Nothing comes. Not a sound.
I remained mute for a week. My words seemed sucked into the cleft between my collar bones. I rescued them by degrees, by praying, bullying and wooing. I came to speak again, but with an odd and mercurial form of stammer. I’d never been a fluid speaker, even my first spoken words had possessed a certain belligerent quality, but now there were ugly, halting gaps between my sentences, endless seconds when the words cowered against my lips and people averted their eyes. Eventually, these horrid pauses began to come and go according to their own mysterious whims. They might plague me for weeks and then remain away months, only to return again as abruptly as they left. "
The day I moved from the nursery to commence a life of maturity in John’s staid old room, I wasn’t thinking of the cruelty that had taken place in the work yard when I was four or of the thin filaments that had kept me tethered to my voice ever since. Those concerns were the farthest thing from my mind. My speech impediment had been absent for some time now—four months and six days. I’d almost imagined myself cured.
So when Mother swept into the room all of a sudden—me, in a paroxysm of adjustment to my surroundings, and Binah, tucking my possessions here and there—and asked if my new quarters were to my liking, I was stunned by my inability to answer her. The door slammed in my throat, and the silence hung there. Mother looked at me and sighed.
When she left, I willed my eyes to remain dry and turned away from Binah. I couldn’t bear to hear one more Poor Miss Sarah.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Reprint edition (May 5, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143121707
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143121701
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 920L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 5 x 7.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #10,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #36 in Black & African American Historical Fiction (Books)
- #39 in Biographical Historical Fiction
- #1,229 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Sue Monk Kidd

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Sue Monk Kidd's debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees, spent more than one hundred weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, has sold more than six million copies in the United States, was turned into both an award-winning major motion picture and musical, and has been translated into thirty-six languages. Her second novel, The Mermaid Chair, was a number one New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a television movie. The Invention of Wings, Kidd's third novel, was an Oprah's Book Club 2.0 pick, and also a number one New York Times bestseller.

Her most recent novel, The Book of Longings, was published in paperback on March 23, 2021. Released in 2020 to widespread critical and reader acclaim, it was an immediate bestseller and book club favorite. It has been translated into 17 languages thus far.

Sue is also an acclaimed memoirist, with titles including The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, her groundbreaking work on religion and feminism, as well as the New York Times bestseller Traveling with Pomegranates, written with her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor. She lives in North Carolina.

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Angela Risner The Sassy Orange

"History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 13, 2014

Verified Purchase

This is the first book by Sue Monk Kidd that I've read. I normally avoid any Oprah book picks, because I'm not a fan, but I am glad that I took a chance on this one.

The Invention of Wings follows the events in the lives of two women: Hetty "Handful" and Sarah Grimke. Both women are enslaved by the times into which they were born. Hetty is black and born to a slave in pre-Civil War Charleston, SC. Sarah's prominent family owns Hetty and her mother, as well as many other slaves who work in and around the house. Sarah's enslavement may not be as obvious as Hetty's, but even as a white female in the 19th century, she didn't have rights to property, inheritance or education.

At age 10, Hetty is given to Sarah as her 11th birthday present. Sarah has always felt out of place in her family, sneaking in to her father's library to read, though such behavior is discourage. She can't reconcile herself with the idea of owning another human being, so she tries to refuse the "gift." But her mother is firm and so Sarah sets out to make Hetty's life as easy as possible. She also promises Hetty's mother that she will set Hetty free someday.

Over the next 35 years, we follow their lives. Their stories are told from their own viewpoints, switching back and forth. Sarah grows increasingly detached from her family and the South's refusal to change. She struggles to find her purpose in life, feeling that it's more than just what is expected of women: marriage and procreation. Her views force her from her church and she moves north to find a place where she can fit in. Eventually her sister, Nina, who shares her beliefs, joins her.

Hetty, for her part, stays just inside the lines of obedience. She witnesses unthinkable acts against her people, including her own mother. Sarah teaches her how to read, which is strictly forbidden, and she is punished when her education is discovered. However, Hetty chooses to be free in her mind, even though her body is owned by someone else.

What's most intriguing to me about this story is that Sarah Grimke and her sister, Nina (Angelina), were real. I had never heard of them until this book, but they were born into a wealthy Charleston family and they did become outcasts for their views on slavery and racial equality.

What amazed me the most was that when they delivered speeches about abolition, they were held in high regard by their male peers. However, once they cross into women's rights, they are told to stop diluting the message. Being a white female apparently was still being less than a man of any color.

Hetty and her family are fictional, but they are a faithful representation of the lives of those born into slavery during this time.

The writing is so well done, I was literally holding my breath during the final scenes of the book. I don't think I've ever been so anxious about anything in my own life as I was Hetty and Sarah in those moments.

Some favorite points:

•There was so much in the world to be had and not had. (Hetty)
•She’d immersed herself in forbidden privileges , yes, but mostly in the belief she was worthy of those privileges. What she’d done was not a revolt, it was a baptism. I saw then what I hadn’t seen before, that I was very good at despising slavery in the abstract, in the removed and anonymous masses, but in the concrete, intimate flesh of the girl beside me, I’d lost the ability to be repulsed by it. I’d grown comfortable with the particulars of evil. There’s a frightful muteness that dwells at the center of all unspeakable things, and I had found my way into it. (Sarah)
•The worst troubling thing he told me was how his neighbor down the street— a free black named Mr. Robert Smyth— owned three slaves. Now what you supposed to do with something like that? Mr. Vesey had to take me to the man’s house to meet the slaves before I allowed any truth to it. I didn’t know whether this Mr. Smyth was behaving like white people, or if it just showed something vile about all people. (Hetty)
•Be careful, you can get enslaved twice, once in your body and once in your mind. (Hetty)
•I hadn’t really expected Lucretia to respond, but after a moment, she spoke. “God fills us with all sorts of yearnings that go against the grain of the world— but the fact those yearnings often come to nothing, well, I doubt that’s God’s doing.” She cut her eyes at me and smiled. “I think we know that’s men’s doing.” She leaned toward me. “Life is arranged against us, Sarah. And it’s brutally worse for Handful and her mother and sister. We’re all yearning for a wedge of sky, aren’t we? I suspect God plants these yearnings in us so we'll at least try and change the courseof things. We must try, that’s all.” (Sarah)
•That’s what I was born for— not the ministry, not the law, but abolition . I’ve come to know it only this night, but it has always been the tree in the acorn. (Sarah)
•“History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.” (Julius Lester)

Highly recommend.

© Angela Risner 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from Amazon or Angela Risner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Angela Risner with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

8 people found this helpful

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Sue Ann

Stellar Work of Art

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 10, 2014

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When I read a book, it's like choosing a film. I research it by reading reviews. Not afraid of 'spoilers', I use the commentary of others as touch points as I read the material myself. Some people don't like 'spoilers' but I embrace all that information as my own back story to enrich my reading experience. Before I read this book, I read the interview Ms. Kidd gave in the January 2014 O' Magazine. Then, I went to Amazon to check on it and read some of the critiques. One of the comments from two of the reviews had to do with the 'notes' (too many) provided by Oprah. I am thinking, it's a book club offering, if they do not want to read Oprah's comments they certainly are not obligated. I personally read all her comments and it was as if we were in a book club together and so it added to my reading experience. I didn't think there were too many Oprah notes and actually thought she could have commented more in the middle of the book. I personally highlighted all the words I looked up for definition as a way to dig deeper myself (one of the things I love most about Kindle books, dictionary is only a tap away).This is a favorite genre of mine; it's a biography written as a as novel during a period in history. I felt very prepared to give this book everything I had and I was not disappointed. I was inspired. The parallel narration worked for me. I spent time with Sarah in her head and then the next chapter I was with Hetty. It was flawless, transitioning between the two women. Their individual voices were always clearly their own. Picturing the mansion was a little trickier. My daughter and I visited Mt Vernon and took a tour of the house and estate complete with the 'warming kitchen' and slave quarters but his estate was in the country and this story took place in an urban mansion in Charleston, SC so I did a lot of creative set designing in my head. It was afterward while reading all the notes and an interview with Sue Monk Kidd that I found out that the Grimke mansion is still standing and she had taken a tour of it. I actually went on line to see pictures of mansions from that era. I wished she had a picture in the book as a reference. I viewed 12 Years a Slave which did have a mansion similar to book's description. I also noticed some details like the 'slave clothes' that she described in the book made out of unbleached muslin and the reading of the Bible verses to the slaves as a way to convince them and possibly themselves that slave ownership was sanctified. One of the books I read last year,The Healing by Jonathan Odell,came to mind while reading this novel. In that book, he articulated the aspect of the mindset of people in captivity. The Healer in Odell's story recognized that aspect of the human spirit and its relevance in becoming free. In Kidd's book, Hattie had that "you can't own me" idea already in her, cultivated by her mother. Also, they had power in their craft, something that they had that the 'master' needed. The ability to sew, quilt and ultimately tell their story. Sarah, on the other hand had to discover her own truth organically, no doubt influenced by her experience viewing a beating of a slave as a four year old girl hidden from view. Kidd elucidated in the back of my edition what was actually factual and what she created. The time she took with details was thrilling for me as a reader. She commented that while she was writing her book, her husband said that she spent more time in the 19th century than in the 21st. I have been spending some time in the 19th century as well, having just finished Elizabeth Gilbert's book The Signature of All Things which takes place in that time period as well. This book was so well-written, well-researched and relevant that it could easily be required reading in a woman's studies curriculum. Honestly, I cannot think of anything more thrilling than to be inside a work of art such as this book where I can totally trust the author as well as feel that I have actually made a contribution as a person by sharing the painful history of our country and be inspired to speak my own truth. This book changed me. It changed how I looked at things in my own life and how I respond. Sarah had an uphill battle all the way. She had to turn her back on everything she had been taught to speak her truth and often under duress and danger. If she can do that, then I actually owe it to her to do my best every day to speak authentically. Honestly, it's the only way any of us will ever be free. Of course, I recommend the book but would qualify it by saying for those people ready to take a journey that will no doubt transform you if you are willing.

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Astrid

A beautiful, thought-provokingly haunting novel about slavery.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 13, 2017

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I bought this book because I enjoyed another book by the same author, The Secret Life of Bees, which was an excellent, thought-provoking read. This book didn't disappoint me either.

It documents the life of Sarah Grimké - a character whom I didn't realise actually existed in history, and did a lot towards the abolishment of slavery and women's rights. It also follows the fictional account of a slave, Hetty 'Handful' Grimké, her mother Charlotte Grimké, and the rest of the slaves and Grimké household. All of the members of the Grimké family are based on real people, the slaves, as I found from the authors note at the back, are fictional accounts, but that doesn't take away from the poignancy as what these characters went through is undoubtedly what a lot of slaves will have gone through, too.

Upon being presented with Hetty as a gift for her eleventh birthday, Sarah Grimké begins her journey of disgust and revolution regarding slave labour. She and Hetty strike up perhaps an unusual friendship, considering Sarah's sister, Mary Grimké, also had a slave and had no such relationship. I really enjoyed Hetty and Sarah's relationship, it wasn't forced, and you could see the pain for both of them - for Sarah not being able to help Hetty, and for Hetty, who was the same as Sarah in her lust for life, except born into the 'wrong' colour skin for those times. I also enjoyed Hetty's relationship with her mother, Charlotte, and both of their fiery passion for freedom - not even freedom, just to be treated like a normal [white] person.

Some years later, the last Grimké sibling is born, Nina Grimké. Sarah projects her passion onto Nina, even becoming her Godmother. The two share a remarkable bond, with Nina being the bullheaded one who wants to get things done asap, and Sarah being the one that theorises and takes her time, but still wanting to get things done. The two did so much, as documented in this fact-based fiction book, to help the rights of slaves and also the rights of women, through a lot of heartache, pain, belief and headstrongness.

I've never really thought about the plight of slaves, because it seems quite far in history to me. What I read in this novel disgusted me - that anyone can be treated in such an inferior way solely due to the colour of their skin. Sadly, racism is still prevalent in today's society, but at least we, as a society, have come on leaps and bounds from when this novel was set in terms of recognising it, and treating everyone as an equal.

A beautifully written, haunting, thought-provoking book that will most likely stay with me for a long time.

14 people found this helpful

JaquiP

A very worthy book. A blend of fact and fiction.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 13, 2019

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I am not sure quite how to review this book, but I will try. Firstly, I'm a Brit but fascinated and intrigued by the history of the American South and the story of the emancipation and suffering endured by slavery. I read Gone with the Wind some forty years ago and more recently The Help and The Underground Railroad plus a university course about the American South which is impossible to separate from its history of slavery. If any reader has an interest - as I do i - in these topics, then this is a well written and fairly absorbing book. It covers a lot of themes and begins when Handful is given to Sarah as her slave on her eleventh birthday and Sarah tries to bestow upon the girl her freedom, without success. The author's aim was not to write a thinly fictionalized account of Sarah's life but a thickly imagined story inspired by her life. She splits her story between Hetty (or Handful) and Sarah one character real, and one imagined. What happened, for me, as a reader,) was that I was more drawn to the chapters about the fictionalized character, than the real person and as a book, it grew a little worthy and heavy without tugging at my heart as it perhaps ought to have done. I'm not sure that all the facts about Sarah's crusade were necessary to the story and dragged it a little. Very very glad I read it though and very interesting to learn about Angelina and Sarah Grimke who I had never before heard of.

4 people found this helpful

Curly E

Inspiring

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 23, 2020

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I heard about this book when Brene Brown interviewed Sue Monk Kidd on her podcast. I already had it on Kindle but had not read it as the story of slavery had put me off, however, after the interview I decided to read this book and I am so glad I did. The book is based on historic facts of the Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, who were white abolitionists as well as feminists. The story is shocking as it tells of a time when slavery was in full force, which is shocking and upsetting by itself, as well as of women who had no voice. Neither the slaves or women had freedom.
I found the book inspirational showing how two women can bring about change, which means us women now have freedoms women of earlier generations could only dream about, and the abolition of slavery.

3 people found this helpful

Spyro

loved it

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 8, 2018

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I don't normally read historical, and I'm not a fan of first person narrative, and I especially dislike dual first person narratives, but this book completely won me over. The voices of Sarah and Handful were so distinct that even without the chapter heading, I always knew whose story I was reading and both women became real because they didn't sound the same. The story kept me intrigued from the first page and I didn't want to stop reading. I was about three-quarters through before I realised the story is based on real people - I had never heard of the Grimke sisters and their involvement in abolition of slavery and women's rights. Once I knew that, the story became even more intriguing. For me it ended a little abruptly, but I suspect that was only because I had become so invested in the characters that I wanted to know more. I loved the author's note at the end, explaining the historical and literary choices she made. Beautifully written and with characters I could care about, and an insight into the America of the time. This is the first book I've read by this author but it won't be the last.

4 people found this helpful

Michelle

4 stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 8, 2020

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It took me a while to get into this but I remembered feeling the same with The Secret Life of Bees so I pushed myself on and on glad I did as I ended up really enjoying this. Well as much as you can ever enjoy a book about slavery that is.

Handful and Sarah arent the most likeable of characters in my opinion but it was hard not adore them in their own ways. I felt that their relationship was probably very realistic due to the dynamics, it had a quiet turbulence about it.

I didnt know about basket names and what a lovely concept! I hope somewhere in the world this tradition lives on.

What an awful period in history that we must force ourselves to continue to read about as it seems we havent learnt from it fully quite yet.

4 stars.

2 people found this helpful

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