The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
This is a historical fiction book loosely based on some historical characters. The book follows the lives of two women; Sarah (a southern white woman) and Hetty ‘Handful’, the slave she is given on her 11th birthday.
The book is all about trying to find your place and make your life better but mostly it is about trying to survive and make the most out of your situation. Obviously the women live very different lives and at times it seems as though their lives have nothing to do with each other yet the contrast between their lives is very meaningful.
Sarah is a woman who wants to do something with her life at a time when women are supposed to bear children and be happy. From wanting to be lawyer like her father to becoming a Quaker and forsaking slavery and her family her journey is complex and difficult in its own way.
Handful’s story is one of constant struggle. From a mother who disappears to being beaten for simple matters, she struggles to survive yet through it all she knows her own self worth and never gives up on the idea that she does not deserve what she is given.
I liked this book. It wasn’t as emotional as I thought it might be and instead was much more historical but I definitely enjoyed it. It was well written and artfully pieced together. I really appreciated watching how the characters grow throughout the story and where they end up.
This is definitely a character based story and I was lucky enough to like our main characters so that I cared about what happened to them and their story. Overall a good book. I don’t have any extreme feeling about it but I definitely learned some history in a not terrible manner.
The Invention of Wings on Amazon
#17 of 2017
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