A small piece of the book description - "set in 1935 against the very real backdrop of a recently formed state eugenics board" - speaks to the history behind The Last Carolina Girl by Meagan Church. The ending of the book somehow does not feel real. It packages everything. Leah's story is a sad one. How could you not empathize with the plight of this child! The horrific history of eugenics in our nation is an important one to remember. For that, I am glad to have read the book.
Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2024/08/the-last-carolina-girl.html
Reviewed for NetGalley.
Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2024/08/the-last-carolina-girl.html
Reviewed for NetGalley.
Debut book for author. This book is heartwarming, thought provoking, and maddening at times (not with the writing, etc. but the events). Below is online review which covers the book very well. VERY GOOD READ.
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.
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.
