The Invention of Wings
Books | Fiction / Literary
4.5
(1.4K)
Sue Monk Kidd
The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide.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.Please note there is another digital edition available without Oprah’s notes.Go to Oprah.com/bookclub for more OBC 2.0 content
Historical Fiction
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More Details:
Author
Sue Monk Kidd
Pages
384
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2014-01-07
ISBN
0698175247 9780698175242
Ratings
Google: 4
Community ReviewsSee all
"Such an amazing author!!"
J W
Jacqueline Whittle
"I couldn’t stop once I started! This story brings into sharp focus the sacrifice and bravery of those early abolitionists and feminists that forged the path for change. I knew nothing about the life of Sarah Grimke before I started, and now I am astounded that we haven’t all heard of her the way we know about Rosa Parks. I am recommending this book to my friends. This is my favorite book so far this year!"
"I enjoy her style of writing. "
B
Barbara
"Amazing!!! Sue has such a unique and beautiful writing style that makes it so easy to finish a book of hers in day or two. This book goes back and forth between a slave and her masters daughter. While In the beginning they are close and their stories take place on the same plantation, each chapter is unique to their own separate lives. As time goes on they take their own paths far from each other. #historical #fiction "
"This is a good book and the real-life Grimke sisters are fascinating historical women that more should be written about. However, I feel like the author tried to bite off more than she could chew with this particular tale. Too many characters over too long a timespan. It felt flat and like a Lifetime movie too often and I just wanted it to end."
R T
Rebekah Travis
"I have mixed feelings about this book. I think what bothered me most was the liberties the author took with the two Grimke sisters. Since they were actual figures whose lives were pretty well documented, I think it would have worked better for me if she had just fictionalized them and given them different names since the other character of Handful (a slave) was completely fictional. The authors note at the end explained why she did that, but for some reason, I had a hard time connecting with the book. Don't get me wrong, it was very good but it didn't grab me as much as it could have. I just kept wondering as I was reading which parts were actually true and which were not."
"I love this author!!"
M C
Michele Cooper
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