Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler-322 pages

Book Blurb:

Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It’s a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow.

Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle’s guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives.

Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son’s irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.

Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family’s housekeeper—in a town where blacks weren’t allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle’s first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.

My Review: 4 stars

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Calling Me Home is about two friends that find each other in the most unlikely of places. I really enjoyed this one. With one narrator who is old and white and one narrator who is young and black, they find trust in one another and learn about themselves through the sharing of their pasts. With a few twists along the way, the author keeps it from being too predictable. Although this book is an incredible account of true love and friendship, racism is at the forefront of this book. If you liked The Help, this should definitely be on your list of books to read.

Quotes I liked:

It’s funny how sometimes you find a friend- in the likely places- and almost immediately, you can talk about anything. But more often than not, after the initial blush, you find you really have nothing in common. With others, you believe you’ll never be more than acquaintances. You’re so different, after all. But then this thing surprises you, sticking longer than you ever predicted, and you begin to rely on it, and that relationship whittles down your walls, little by little, until you realize you know that one person better than almost anyone. You’re really, truly friends.”

– “The heart is a demanding tenant; it frequently makes a strong argument against common sense.”

– “Still, I don’t believe my mother ever really lerned how to love me properly. Her basic needs were scarcely met as a child, and all she could do as an adult was clutch at the status she believed would save her. I really do think it all boiled down to fear. She was so worried about what the people around us would think, she forgot about…me.”

-“Anyone who thinks a seventeen-year-old is mature enough to always know the difference between a smart choice and a dumbass decision hasn’t been a mother to a seventeen-year-old.”