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Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez Book Review

Reasons For Reading This Book:

One of my favorite book Instagram accounts to look at when I need a book recommendation is @bookedwithrook. I saw Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez on her Taylor Swift/TTPD post. The comment was Take My Hand: history they don't teach you in school. I looked up the book at my library and read the description. I was instantly interested, so I checked it out. 

Content of This Book:

Its 1973 in Montgomery, Alabama and Civil Townsend, the daughter of a local doctor, and recent collage graduate is starting her first job at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic. Her goal in taking this position is to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies. The first case she is assigned is to administer birth control to 11 and 13 year old sisters. Not only is she shocked by their age, but also their living conditions. The sisters live with their father and grandmother in a one-room cabin in the country. Upon learning that the sisters have never even kissed a boy, Civil begins questioning why they are receiving birth control. She discovers that being poor and Black is reason enough for those in charge of the family's benefit to think that the girls should be on birth control. Civil and the William's family welcome one another into their lives and hearts. One day everything changes when Civil learns what someone at the clinic has done the unthinkable to the girls. Now Civil is on the fight for justice. The opposing narration is Dr. Civil Townsend decades later after a successful career and raising her daughter. Dr. Townsend is now on a journey to find her peace and to leave the past behind her though there are stories she cannot forget and ones that should not be forgotten. 

What I Liked About This Book:

Something I want to commend the author for right from the start is their ability to write a complete story without excess details or side plots. This book is the most concise but thought out book I have ever read. I greatly appreciated that the author would in one or two sentences give an update or summarize something. There was no unnecessary fluff in this book and I that about it. The writing is well done and perfectly descriptive. As I figured it would be from the minute I read the book's description, I was captivated by the plot. I was instantly drawn into both the past and present narration. I not only loved the narrator for who she was as a character, but also for the way the told her story and the stories of those in her life. I not only learned about women's health issues from the past, but I also learned about the legal case that surrounded this issue. I know from reading the author's note that this book was loosely based on a specific case/incident and that a majority of the plot and characters are fictionalized, but I don't mind that because I can believe that this is something that actually happened. This author and the story had me experience every possible emotion while reading it. I felt immense empathy and sadness for the girls/patients, I felt Civil's motivation to make things right, and I felt the never ending love Civil had for the girls. This book also discussed race and injustice in a situation that I had never read before where the characters are the same minority race, but experience life differently due to their social economic status. I could go on and on about what I loved about this book, but I think I had said enough to convince someone to read it. 

What I Disliked About This Book:

There is not much I disliked about this book. If I had to choose one thing it would be that some details about the girls adult lives were never shared as the two time frames were when they were young girls and then when they were much older, skipping a big chunk of time. This was just an after thought for me and not something that I thought of while reading the book. 

Would I Recommend This Book?

I would 100% recommend this book. I could not put it down and read most of it in just 3 days. As soon as I finished it I recommended it to my mom. I believe this book shares on a topic that, like @bookedwithrook shared in her post, is history they don't teach in school. I absolutely loved this book and recommend everyone reads it. 

Check out my book reviews for 2024!!


Check out my book reviews for 2023!!

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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
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Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
Hester by Laurie Pico Albanese
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Environmental and Sustainability Book Reviews 2022
Self-Improvement Book Reviews 2022
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
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Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham 
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Run, Rose, Run by James Patterson and Dolly Parton
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A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard
The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewives by Brian Moylan
Verity by Colleen Hoover
All Rhodes Lead Here by Mariana Zapata
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Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart 
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Check out my book reviews for 2021!!

2021 Book Rankings

Beach Read By Emily Henry
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Educated by Tara Westover
The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 
The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins 
We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins 
We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Klara and the Sun 
The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner
American Duchess by Karen Harper 
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Girl With No Job by Claudia Oshry
Down the Habit Hole by Holly Madison Book Review
My Story by Elizabeth Smart
Layla by Colleen Hoover

Check out my book reviews for 2020!!

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