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The Invention of Wings: A Novel - Sue Monk Kidd
The Invention of Wings: A Novel
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From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women     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... show more
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women     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—and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. 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.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9780670024780 (0670024783)
ASIN: 0670024783
Publisher: Viking Adult
Pages no: 384
Edition language: English
Bookstores:
Community Reviews
Midu Reads
Midu Reads rated it
3.5 The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd — A Story about Mothers, Sisters, and Slaves!
Fifteen years before Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was wholly influenced by American Slavery As It Is, a pamphlet written by Sarah, Angelina, and Angelina’s husband, Theodore Weld, and published in 1839, the Grimké sisters were out crusading not only for the immediate emancipa...
Words of a Bibliophile
Words of a Bibliophile rated it
3.5 The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
"...I felt the old, irrepressible ache to know what my point in the world might be. I felt the longing more solemnly than anything I'd ever felt, even more than my old innate loneliness." This book is divided into chapters told by Sarah Grimké, one of America's first female abolitionists and feminis...
C. P. Lesley
C. P. Lesley rated it
A beautifully written, emotionally compelling story of slavery in the early 19th-century United States, told from the contrasting perspectives of Sarah Grimké, a Charleston planter's daughter, and Hetty (Handful), the slave given to Sarah by her parents as a maid to mark Sarah's 11th birthday. With ...
Ruined by Reading
Ruined by Reading rated it
4.0 A Perilous Journey
Chasing the North Star is the story of a slave named Jonah who learns to read as he serves his master’s children, listening in on their lessons. He is whipped when he is found reading in the hayloft, accused of stealing a book he was given by the mistress. Humiliated and hurt, Jonah decides impulsiv...
Angel's Book Reviews 2.0
Angel's Book Reviews 2.0 rated it
3.0 The Invention of Wings: A Novel
89. THE INVENTION OF WINGS, BY SUE MONK KIDDI’ll admit: I wasn’t really attracted to the idea of reading this book, mainly because of the Oprah’s Book Club thing. Yes, so very snobbish of me, and I’m glad I managed to get over it. I’m not sure even why the Oprah’s Book Club would have been a bad thi...
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