Written By Sadeqa Johnson
384 Pages, Hard Cover
First Published Feb 7th, 2023.
Genre:
Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance, Adult Fiction, Historical
About the Author:
Sadeqa Johnson is a New York Times best-selling author who has penned five novels; The house of eve, Yellow Wife, And then there was me, Second house from the corner & Love in a carry on bag.
Her books have many amazing reviews in journals and magazines, she has even won many awards. Her book The yellow wife was ranked in by Oprah Magazine as “27 of 2021 Most Anticipated Winter Historical Fiction books.”
Sadeqa teaches the MFA program at Drexel University and is a writing instructor for Story Summit.
When she’s not writing or reading library books, she is busy doing yoga, meditating, hiking and dancing.
Sadeqa was originally from Philadelphia, and currently lives near Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and three teenagers.
Book synopsis as written in Goodreads:
1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.
Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.
With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.
Book synopsis from Goodreads.com
Book review and points for discussion:
Ok, first of all I loved this book and I rate it 5 Stars. I found myself binge reading this after a slow start. This book is a beautifully written novel encompassing history of infertility, adoption and the shame young african american women were made to feel and shamefully treated as unwed mothers.
I would like to preface this review with the warning that it contains spoilers. If you are still reading or planning to please stop reading now and please come back after you have read it.
The book begins with Ruby, a 15 year old girl living in Philadelphia in the 1950's. She is an amazing student and works tremendously hard to graduate and be the first person in her family to attend college to become an optometrist so that she can help her grandmother regain her site. She lives with her mother Inez and her mother's latest boyfriend. Inez is not the greatest mother and Ruby strives to break free from generational poverty.
We are introduced to Eleanor who desperately wants to be part of a college sorority
in Washington DC. She has nominated herself to become a member but is not accepted, she believes it is because the shade of her skin matters. The other girls in the sorority, whilst african american are lighter skinned and come from wealthy established families. Eleanor meets another student named William who has aspirations to become a doctor. His family are frankly a nightmare to Eleanor as they don't feel that she is up to their elite, wealthy family. His mother has picked another girl for him to marry who is Eleanor's nemesis.
Eleanor and William enter into a relationship and she finds herself pregnant. They plan to marry and are met with much resistance from William's family - namely his mother. Unfortunately, Eleanor has a miscarriage but they still marry.
Pregnant once again, Eleanor has another miscarriage and it comes to light that this was her third pregnancy loss and they are advised not to try again as it would be too risky.
William is quite hurt to discover that Eleanor had been pregnant before and this causes a distance between them. However, they come up with a plan to adopt a baby from the house of Magdelene and pass it off as their biological child. William's mother puts the plan in detailed motion and Eleanor wears a fake baby bump. It's a whole plan, I don't know how they pulled it off but they did.
They are told that their baby son will be ready to collect soon, however when they pick the baby up -( paying a donation by the way) the baby is a girl.
Thats the plot of Eleanor and Williams journey in the book so far.
Returning to Ruby's storyline, she meets a Jewish boy named Shimmy and they are attracted to one another. He happens to see her artwork and is very impressed. They begin a relationship but they encounter predjudice and racism from others in the community.
Ruby lives with her Aunt as her mother kicked her out as she felt threatened that her pervert boyfriend would be after Ruby and threaten her relationship. - (She puts her lecherous boyfriend before Ruby).
Shimmy wants to be seen in public with Ruby but they encounter a lot of interracial relationship racism. When Ruby becomes pregnant, Shimmy's mother makes a deal with Ruby that if she enters into the house of Magdelene a facility for unwed mothers and relinquishes the baby She will make sure that Ruby gets her scholarship to attend school to become an optometrist.
There is a twist involving both girls as, the baby that is meant for the Prides is born with a lazy eye and cannot be adopted so the baby has been given to a orphanage. "Really?",apparently so. As Mother Margaret needs a baby for the Prides she has Ruby forced into labour early. She gives birth to a girl that she names Grace. Eleanor and William are given Grace and they name her Wilhelmina.
At the end of the book, Wilhemina is a teen and she wonders why she doesn't have the same body shape as her mother?
Eleanor goes to see William at work and he introduces her to a fellow doctor, an optometrist, This is Ruby. (who admires a painting that Wilhelmina painted).
Wow, there is a lot packed into this book. Points for discussion are:
The lifestyle of the wealthy Blacks of the 1940s. Their classist thinking, their preference for ‘white’ or ‘light’ skinned people from among their own race, and their wannabe-white attitude is interesting to read.
Dual point of views
It explores a lot of the hardships women, but Black women in particular, had to go through in order to just survive. To have a decent life.
It shines a light on parts of history that are ugly, quite frankly.
The pain each woman suffered, as well as their pure passion for achieving the goals they had set for themselves.
The harsh and unfair way women were treated whilst pregnant, and then made to give babies up in the facilities of the unwed mothers. Babies ripped from their arms in forced adoptions.
This is the first book I've read by Sadeqa Johnson and I would read her other books.
V
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