Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat story, great writer, I wish she had more books written for me to read.
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2017
I've been looking for an author like this. If you read this and you know of other authors who write like Julia Kibler, please let me know. On Amazon, you could probably reach me by asking a question. On Goodreads, I think you can just comment and it will get to me.
This novel was character driven, heartfelt, wholesome, and with just the right amount of description. Kibler relied heavily on character interaction and conversation to bring out the complications of love, family relations, and race relations. I loved the way, in the accounts of both generations, she wisely painted how two close friends, without race issues in their hearts, misunderstand that there were. It's relevant to today where, when we are not vocal, but remain kindly silent, we are sometimes misunderstood and are opening accused of thinking like others who are "like" us.
This is a story of forbidden love. Isabelle, a young, white woman, falls in love with a black man in the forties, in the south, for all the right reasons. He's intelligent, engaged with the world, humble, kind, hard-working, sensitive, protective, and loyal. His qualities are unmatched by any white suitors acceptable to her family.
Isabelle asks Dorrie, her black hair dresser, to take her to Cincinnati to a funeral. During their trip, Kibler switches between the present in Dorrie's first person point of view and Isabelle's heartbreaking past, also in first person. By mobile phone, Dorrie, a single mom, deals with a crisis with her two teenagers and tries to trust her new love interest to help her. As Isabelle relates the prejudices of the past, the two women are forced to interact with the prejudices of today at restaurants and hotels.
Everything is eventually tied up beautifully, all questions answered. Love that!
It's just so, so good.
