Take My Hand

Haunting. A powerful beginning; so good that the first thing I did upon finishing the book was reread the first few chapters. Effective first-person narration, ostensibly epistolary but inobtrusively so. Dual timelines worked beautifully: about 80% was 1973, tense, dramatic, distinctly uncomfortable; the rest, in 2016, tempered the heat with mature reflection. Getting to know the narrator like that—first as an interesting, conflicted adult, then as the hotheaded but caring young person she was— ... well, I found myself crushing hard on her. The book is much more than about her, of course, but it's so enjoyable to have the author devote care to every aspect. That's why we read.

The story is fiction, the events behind it are not, and near the one-third mark I felt compelled to read up on the historical basis. Waiting that long worked well for me, and I recommend it. Or perhaps even waiting until after finishing the book. This is history I never knew (yes, that bothers me!) but I think that, had I read up about it beforehand, the book's effect would've been lessened.