MY THOUGHTS
I've read a few emotional books in my time. Some that really kept me weeping all the way through. This is one of them. This is emotional on a whole new level though. I learned a few things while reading this book. A few things that we all should know and prevent from ever happening again.
This is fourteen year old Leah Payne's story. It's told with her voice. Her thoughts and her feelings. Her pain. Her losses. Her heart. It will absolutely break your heart. The sad thing is that this happened in this country. Way to many times. I thought other countries were bad trying to create the perfect race. While this is not in so many words about creating the perfect race, according to the people who did this, it actually is. Using Eugenics to keep anyone from having a child. To sterilize women. To sterilize a child. It is beyond cruel. It's inhumane. No one has the right to decide who is not smart enough to have a child. Who is not good enough. It's just wrong on so many levels. This book will take you there and many more places.
Leah was living her life with her daddy in North Carolina. Going about her daily life happy and content. While they were basically poor they did have a lot. They had each other. They had a roof over their heads and her daddy had a job. Yes they lived on the Barnas' property but Leah's daddy worked for them. She played with their son Jesse. Went to school with him. He was her best friend. Her mother died after she gave birth to her. She bled to death. Her daddy raised her and taught her to be a good child but also let her experience freedom. Be alive and happy. Until the unthinkable happened. Then she had to go live with a foster family. But she didn't have any idea what she was in store for. Being a "helpmate" instead of a typical foster child. The Griffins were a typical family. They had money and a nice life. Three children and a home. Plenty of food and each other.
Leah goes through so much from Mrs Griffin. The woman is cruel. Evil mean. She puts Leah in what can only be described as a closet out back with room only for a bed and dresser. One tiny window. All Leah is there for is to cook, clean and help with the youngest child. Leah is a hard worker and only wants a family. To be accepted. She also wants to go back home. She puts up with physical and mental abuse from Mrs Griffin. While the other children seem to love her, especially the youngest, Leah is not at all happy. She tries so hard to please this woman. The final straw comes when she over hears Mrs Griffin and another snooty woman taking at the cotillion. She finds out that the woman her her sterilized.
This story takes you on a very emotional ride. Through so many tears. The things this teenage girl goes through is so sad. What makes it worse is it is based on an actual event. This author's aunt. You will learn about her in the "Author's Note" at the end. It's heartbreaking what happened and in some cases it seems still happens. This book is well researched so don't think it's not real. That it never happened. It did. It needs to never happen again. No matter what.
Quotes that hit me:
'ALL I HAD LEFT IN ALL THE WORLD WAS MY QUILT AND THE PICTURE I'D TAKEN FROM THE DRESSER BEFORE WE'D WALKED OUT THE DOOR THAT MORNING.'
'THE THING ABOUT KIDS. ADULTS ALWAYS TRY TO TELL THEM TO GROW UP, ACT THEIR AGE, THAT THERE'S NO SENSE IN CRYING. BUT KIDS KNOW THAT SOMETIMES THE ONLY THING TO DO IS LET THE TEARS WASH OUT OF YOU. SOMETIMES TEARS ARE THE ONLY WORDS WORTH SHARING."
Yes, this is a very emotional story. It does have a couple of very sweet parts and a couple of chuckles but overall it's based on actual events and it's heartbreaking. It's horrible. It's one you need to read.
Publishes March 28th of this year.
Thank you #NetGalley, #MeaganChurch, #SourceBooksLandmark, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this story.
Five huge stars and a very high recommendation. Read it with a new box of Kleenex. You will need them.
SYNOPSIS
"Unforgettable, this a powerful debut to savor." — Kim Michele Richardson, New York Times bestselling author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
A searing book club novel for fans of Where the Crawdad's Sing and The Girls in the Stilt House following one girl fighting for her family, her body, and her right to create a future all her own
Some folks will do anything to control the wild spirit of a Carolina girl...
For fourteen-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is as simple as it is free. Devoted to her lumberjack father and running through the wilds where the forest meets the shore, Leah's country life is as natural as the Loblolly pines that rise to greet the Southern sky.
When an accident takes her father's life, Leah is wrenched from her small community and cast into a family of strangers with a terrible secret. Separated from her only home, Leah is kept apart from the family and forced to act as a helpmate for the well-to-do household. When a moment of violence and prejudice thrusts Leah into the center of the state's shameful darkness, she must fight for her own future against a world that doesn't always value the wild spirit of a Carolina girl.
Set in 1935 against the very real backdrop of a recently formed state eugenics board, The Last Carolina Girl is a powerful and heart-wrenching story of fierce strength, forgotten history, autonomy, and the places and people we ultimately call home.
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