5 stars I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley. This is my first time reading something from this author. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised. It’s an incredible read which left me in tears by the end. I mean, sure, I knew it was impossible that this story could have a happy ending, considering the circumstances. It was 1948. I don’t think there was anywhere in the United States where Eva and Courtland could have found their happily-ever-after, but hope springs eternal, I guess. In true Shakespearean tragedy fashion, Eva and Courtland are destined for heartache, but like Romeo and Juliet, they know what their hearts want, even if no one else wants them to have it. But there’s something about Eva and Courtland’s story that’s even more heartbreaking because it’s not make-believe, and still within recent memory. It’s not some silly family feud kind of situation. It’s reality. It’s our shameful history. And it makes that history concrete and palpable, something that the reader can easily feel and suffer along with the characters, which is something that can never be gleaned from a history book. This is living history, in that the reader is compelled to live something that happened countless times to countless people over too many years. Fiction is a tool to help the reader feel the experiences of other people, possibly people with whom they have nothing in common. What we discover is that the human experience is what ties us all together. It takes a monster to be offered a window into the struggles of someone else and think they deserved it. To be unaffected by the pain of someone else is to show a total lack of compassion, and really, humanity. There are those who would like to take us back to this time—a time when America was “great.” Unfortunately, I don’t think reading something like this can have an impact on minds that have already been closed to anything that contradicts their worldview. I’d like to be wrong about that. Luckily, there are others, people like me, who feel compassion on a mostly theoretical level because we have never personally experienced the struggles of those who are different. This is where books like this, fictional in only the strictest sense of the world, can have the biggest impact. Sure, every situation is different, but having a touchstone for comprehending things is enormously helpful to those who want to understand. Add this to your list of books to read before it gets banned for revealing too much history. July 20, 2022
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Elizabeth J ConnorWriter. Editor. Proofreader. Archives
September 2022
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