Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Review: Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

This is a great book and one that really makes you think about racial division, not only from back in the 30's but still today.  It is told from the perspective of both Dorrie and Ms. Isabelle, the two main characters.  It is a story of friendship and a story of love; despite skin color, economic status, or generational difference. 

I loved Ms. Isabelle's fiesty demeanor and Dorrie's self independence, it makes for a great ride.  Both characters despite their extreme differences weave themselves into your heart and you can't help but feel compassion for the struggles they've endured. There are times in the story that my heart actually hurt for Ms. Isabelle. 

This is an excellent novel and a great book for discussion.  Can we really choose whom are heart chooses to love?  Why does society have such a difficult time with accepting that two people are devoted and love each other despite their race?  I am not only talking whites but blacks as well.  Kindness and compassion should always prevail in this world and yet it doesn't.  It is really sad to me because everyone in this world needs a lot of both.




SYNOPSIS by Barnes & Noble
Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler is a soaring debut interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship.
Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It's a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow.
Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle's guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives.
Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son’s irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.
Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper—in a town where blacks weren’t allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.
RATING - 4 STARS - I Loved It

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