The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings was not a book I normally would have picked up and read on my own, but this was my book club's January pick. It's an historical fiction with some parts based on fact and others completely made up to suite the story.

Here's the Good Reads synopsis:

"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."

The story revolves around the two main characters, Handful/Hetty and Sarah. Sarah is the white daughter of a rich and powerful landowner in Charleston, South Carolina in the early 1800s. Handful and her mother are seamstress slaves owned by the Grimke family.

At Sarah's 11th birthday party, she is presented with Handful as her gift. Even at the young age of 11, Sarah knows that owning another human being is wrong. She tries to refuse the gift only to be severely reprimanded by her mother and forced to accept in front of all their guests. As they grow up together, they walk a fine line between the roles of master and slave and friendship.

Sarah Grimke and her sister Nina were actually real women who grew up to help lead an anti-slavery movement that also led to a partial women's right's movement. Handful's character was not a real person, but I can see why Kidd created her to balance Sarah's story.

I really enjoyed Handful and her spunky personality. She seemed much deeper than Sarah, with thoughts such as, "I have a mind for the master to see, I have another for what I know is me." While Sarah was a prisoner of her station but she was by no means as tragic as she was made out to be. I felt she was dramatic.

Overall, I thought the novel was good, but I just don't think it was for me. It took me a while to get into, and it didn't really hook me or pull me in.