Title: “Calling
Me Home”
Author: Julie
Kibler
Publisher: St.
Martin’s Press
Publication Date: February
12, 2013
Genre: Historical
Fiction, Romance
Reviewed by: Books4Tomorrow
Source: Received
from publisher via NetGalley
My star rating: 5/5
SUMMARY
Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a
favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It's a big one. Isabelle wants
Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her
from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear
explanation why. Tomorrow.
Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle's guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives.
Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son's irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.
Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper--in a town where blacks weren't allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.
Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle's guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives.
Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son's irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.
Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper--in a town where blacks weren't allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.
REVIEW
I can’t
recall where I read it, but someone compared this book to Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. That comparison is what got me
interested in reading Calling Me Home.
That, and of course the picture on the cover that already spoke a thousand
words to me. At first, other than the time in which the story plays out of a
young Isabelle falling in love with her soulmate who – according to her family
and the laws of that time – is the wrong color, I couldn’t see how this book
could be compared to the magnificence of The
Help. By the time I finished Calling
Me Home, bawling my eyes out while ploughing through the last ten chapters,
I knew exactly why this book is reminiscent of Kathryn Stockett’s masterpiece.
Folks, I’m begging you to read this book. Even if you think this might not be
your cup of tea, I can promise you, you’ll leave a piece of your heart behind
in this sensitively written, exquisite novel by a debut author whose writing
will move you and leave you breathlessly in awe.
It took
me a few weeks to finish this novel. This is not a book you read in one
sitting. It takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, and attempting to
finish it in one go might leave you feeling emotionally drained. There’s only
so much the heart can take. I kept rereading certain paragraphs and sentences,
amazed at how well the author understands and translates the deepest love and
pain a person can possibly feel. I lingered on passages with deeper meanings
and ones with comparisons to my own life; chapters which made me question my
views and opinions and had me asking myself what I would’ve done in both
Isabelle and Dorrie’s situations. This is a story that forces you to think! And
that, people, is why it took me weeks to finish this book. You don’t simply
read it; you live it. You backtrack –
pages, paragraphs, sentences – just so to experience those same emotions all
over again. Why? Because you think it won’t hit you as hard again as it did
reading it the first time. But it does.
I can’t
really say anything more (without giving spoilers) than what the blurb already
summarised. I won’t be surprised at all if this story is made into a movie
someday. Isabelle, Dorrie, Robert and Nell crawled so deep into my heart they
became a part of me. I can hardly believe this is the author’s first book. Her
characters connected with me on so many levels. I laughed in some places, I
nodded my head in agreement with the life lessons Dorrie learned through Isabelle’s
experiences, and most of all, it gave me the courage to stand my ground when
faced with adversity. Isabelle and Robert’s story might be a tale of love
across racial barriers, but Calling Me
Home is so much more than simply a love story. The brutal honesty in the
telling of events from Isabelle as a young, naïve girl to Isabelle as a much
wiser eighty-nine-year-old woman, who still has to deal with the same intolerances
today as she had to in the late 1930s, is only one of the many layers of this
superb read that renders the reader completely at the author’s mercy. The
atrocities, discrimination, prejudice and blatant disregard for human lives,
love in all its different forms, loss, hope, friendship, forgiveness and moving
on; only some of the elements which forms part of this multi-faceted story, are
what kept me rooted to my seat and slowly savoring each page.
Calling Me Home is a tearjerker with
a surprising and unpredictable ending. Although I cried my way through a large
part of the story – especially the ending – this is one of the few stories that
had such an emotional impact on me, it changed my life. For me this was a
journey on a personal level which I took whilst in the shoes of Dorrie and
Isabelle, and as a mother, a friend, and someone who knows what it’s like to
love someone so completely they become your every breath, I commend the author
on her honesty, her fearlessness, and her wisdom in creating extraordinary
characters who spoke directly to me and who became my memorable companions on
an emotional journey of courage, discovery, acceptance and perseverance. This
is a definite must-read for the reader who, like me, wears her heart on her
sleeve.
I
received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange
for an honest review.
READ more REVIEWS
Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler has
146 reviews on Goodreads. Read it here.
PURCHASE LINKS
ABOUT the AUTHOR
Julie Kibler began writing Calling Me Home after
learning a bit of family lore: as a young woman, her grandmother fell in love
with a young black man in an era and locale that made the relationship
impossible. When not writing, she enjoys travel, independent films, music,
photography, and corralling her teenagers and rescue dogs. She lives in Texas.
Calling Me Home is her debut.
AUTHOR LINKS
