Book Review: Take My Hand
- Amazing Grace L. Danso
- 18 hours ago
- 2 min read
Book Review: Take My Hand
Author: Dolen Perkins-Valdez 🇺🇸
Type of work (Genre): historical fiction
Number of pages: 359
Own or Borrowed: own, purchased online through Kindle
Overall Impressions: I had mixed feelings overall. The story itself is a critical one based on historical events surrounding the forced sterilzation of Black and other non-white women. I am very glad it is being told. However, I am a bit conflicted on the execution. I appreciated Perkins-Valdez’s intent in creating a protagonist who is complex rather than one-dimensional. However, at times, it felt we were losing her a bit. Some of her actions felt borderline like she was describing someone with a white savior complex, which is intriguing given she’s Black. I also felt the story unnecessarily provided a means for white folks who may read it to feel absolved from the atrocities committed by their forefathers. I didn’t feel it centered the victims of the sterialization enough. Perhaps, it would have been better to write the story from their perspective rather than that of priviledged whistleblowing Black nurse. I also felt there were elements of the book that could have been skipped because they didn’t really add much to the story but rather prolonged it in a way that felt underwhelming. Nevertheless, the writing aspect of it is well done.
Something that stood out: the story being told from two time periods, 1973 and 2016.
Overall Rating: 🖋🖋🖋 (out of 5 fountain pens).
Recommend or nah: I recommend it. It is an important story.
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