I don't fly often, but when I do, my main travel accessory is a book that will pass the time on the plane. I don't like to take the chance of starting one once I'm already enclosed in that steel flying contraption, because, inevitably, I'm not going to like my book of choice and I'll be stuck for hours with nothing to do. I'm sure it's happened to most of you.
I picked up Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler on the last leg of my trip home from Florida. I didn't have anything left to read and I hadn't started this one yet, so it had two strikes against it already (flying rule strikes, that is), but this book defied the odds beautifully. I ended up loving the story of a young hairdresser being asked, out of the blue, to drive her elderly client across the country for an unknown reason and the conversations that took place between the pair on the way.
Isabelle is an 89-year-old spitfire and Dorrie her young, black hairdresser. The story is indeed about racial lines, but it's also an incredible friendship story, a love story, and family drama. Kibler created each of her characters in a way that completely hooked me -- having me feel all the necessary emotions for each one. Though Isabelle's mother wasn't the most sympathetic of characters, I was able to feel sympathy for a woman just choosing to do what she knew. That's the mark of a great author.
I ended up racing through Calling Me Home in that 2.5 hour flight. It was beautifully written and easy to want to tear through, as I really needed to know what would happen to everyone at the end. I was reading so quickly, the woman seated next to me on the plane, in her full Army uniform, asked me about the book, because she noticed. She said she was going to buy it as soon as a store was open the next day. Another reader gained.
I highly recommend you all checking this one out!
1 Comments on Calling Me Home review, last added: 3/8/2013
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This sounds like a great read. I'll put it on my list. I agree with you about starting a book on a trip. I took what I thought was going to be a wonderful book on a cruise and it turned out to be boring.
Ann