Helpful Score: 6
Hands down the best women's fiction book I've read in a long time. It will break your heart, and it will soothe your heart. I wanted to hug this book and not let go. Highly recommended!
Helpful Score: 1
I'm so charged up emotionally right now since I just finished this book!
I can't stop thinking about the unforgettable love between Isabelle and Robert, flawlessly told in alternate chapters during 1939 and present day. This is such a beautiful, heart wrenching, sad love story with a surprise ending I didn't see coming. All I can say, is read this book and keep the tissues nearby.
I can't stop thinking about the unforgettable love between Isabelle and Robert, flawlessly told in alternate chapters during 1939 and present day. This is such a beautiful, heart wrenching, sad love story with a surprise ending I didn't see coming. All I can say, is read this book and keep the tissues nearby.
Helpful Score: 1
Julie Kibler's debut novel tackles many themes common to Southern fiction: race relations; interracial marriage; family secrets; and unexpected friendship. The story is split between a present-day road trip from Arlington, Texas, to Cincinnati for 30-something Dorrie and almost-90 Isabelle, and a flashback to Isabelle's coming of age in the 1930s. Of particular interest is an explanation of the "sundown" law in Isabelle's small Kentucky town which prohibited blacks in town after dark. Interestingly, these laws were in no way limited to just the South but were found as far west as California in the 1930s. I like the way this book compared and contrasted race relations between Isabelle's "then" and Dorrie and Isabelle's "now," but - at the same time - there was something lacking for me and I never felt fully engaged. Despite this sentiment, I believe Julie Kibler is a fine writer and I look forward to reading her future books.
