The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
I am a huge fan of The Secret Life of Bees. I didn't like The Mermaid Chair quite so much an I couldn't make it past the first chapter of The Dance of the Dissident Daughter. When I read about The Invention of Wings in O Magazine, I wanted to read it but I approached it with some trepidation. Books recommended by Oprah can be great while others can be tedious and boring. I wanted to love it and didn't want to be disappointed.
Sarah Grimke is given Handful as her handmaiden on her eleventh birthday. Handful has been given that slave name for a reason. Rarely is she called by her given name, Hettie. Sarah breaks every rule by teaching Handful how to read. They form a bond as girls, women, friends, but the fact that Sarah is the master and Handful, the slave, sits heavy as an iron anvil between them.
This story spans several decades until the women are well into their forties and find themselves on the brink of the Civil War. They have both suffered in their lives. Sarah is bound by being a woman in an era when only men went to school and had careers and the opinions of women thought to be meaningless. Handful, on the other hand is trapped solely by the color of her skin.
The Invention of Wings took my breath away page after page. I didn't realize until I'd finished the book that Sarah Grimke and her sister, Angelina were real women. Although this is a fictional account, Kidd used their story as a basis for hers. The imagery is spectacular, the writing, poetic. Here's how I know The Invention of Wings is destined to be a classic. When I hit the page button on my Kindle and it said, "The End", I gasped. I wanted more. There had to be more. Sarah and Handful had become my friends along the way and I didn't want to see them go.
I am a huge fan of The Secret Life of Bees. I didn't like The Mermaid Chair quite so much an I couldn't make it past the first chapter of The Dance of the Dissident Daughter. When I read about The Invention of Wings in O Magazine, I wanted to read it but I approached it with some trepidation. Books recommended by Oprah can be great while others can be tedious and boring. I wanted to love it and didn't want to be disappointed.
Sarah Grimke is given Handful as her handmaiden on her eleventh birthday. Handful has been given that slave name for a reason. Rarely is she called by her given name, Hettie. Sarah breaks every rule by teaching Handful how to read. They form a bond as girls, women, friends, but the fact that Sarah is the master and Handful, the slave, sits heavy as an iron anvil between them. This story spans several decades until the women are well into their forties and find themselves on the brink of the Civil War. They have both suffered in their lives. Sarah is bound by being a woman in an era when only men went to school and had careers and the opinions of women thought to be meaningless. Handful, on the other hand is trapped solely by the color of her skin.
The Invention of Wings took my breath away page after page. I didn't realize until I'd finished the book that Sarah Grimke and her sister, Angelina were real women. Although this is a fictional account, Kidd used their story as a basis for hers. The imagery is spectacular, the writing, poetic. Here's how I know The Invention of Wings is destined to be a classic. When I hit the page button on my Kindle and it said, "The End", I gasped. I wanted more. There had to be more. Sarah and Handful had become my friends along the way and I didn't want to see them go.
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