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Book Review Pro | Karen Pool
Book Review Pro | Karen Pool
Author : Jo Jo Moyes
Genre : Historical Fiction
The Giver of Stars is a fiction based on the true story of the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky during the depression era. Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve, hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on.
The leader is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who traverse Appalachia on horseback to deliver books to families in the area.
What happens to them—and to the men they love—becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity, and passion. These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives.
Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is funny, heartbreaking, and enthralling. It is a modern classic–a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond. The writing is beautiful: “This town could polish a piece of gossip and preserve it like an insect in amber. It would still be rolling around whole centuries later.”
“Alice felt the little horse shoot forward under her and they were catering up a long flint track. She breathed in the cooler air, the sweet damp scents of the forest, the path dappling with broken light in front of them, and the trees creating a cathedral canopy high above. Alice leaned over the horse’s neck, and felt suddenly, unexpectedly happy. As they slowed she realized she was smiling broadly, without thinking about it. It was a striking sensation, like someone suddenly able to exercise a lost limb.”
Alice leaned forward and took Kathleen in her arms, the young woman’s body racked with sobs so fierce that Alice’s own body shook with them. She placed her arms tightly around her, pulled her close and let her cry, holding her so tightly that the sadness seeping out of Kathleen became an almost tangible thing, the grief she carried a weight that settled over them both. She pressed her head to Kathleen’s, trying to lift a little of the sadness, to tell her silently that there was still beauty in this world, even is some days it took every bit of strength and obstinacy to find it. Eventually like a wave crashing onto the shore, Kathleen’s sobs slowed, and quieted into sniffs and hiccups. . . . Alice lifted the books onto her lap. ‘Would . . . would you like me to read to you.'”
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