Monday, September 22, 2008

Heavenly Places - my review

This was probably one of my favorite passages from the book "Good, 'cause there's nothing more important than your role as wife and mother. You're the heartbeat of the home. The manager. Teacher. Nurturer. Prayer warrior. God wants to do so much through you in your home, work that sails on into eternity...." It was a great reminder of the importance of my role in our family as a nonworking spouse and homeschooling mom.
The thing I had trouble comprehending in this book was all the talk about the shades of black. The author is black as are the characters in the book. I never realized that folks paid attention to the shade of black. I guess because I don't pay much attention to shades of white. But this book definitely said that people notice if they are darker black or lighter black and that one is more beautiful than the other (or at least the author did growing up or why would she include it as such an important part of her story).
While I enjoyed the characters and the overall plot, the preachiness got to be a bit too much at times. There were a number of occasions that I skimmed through Bible passages and their explanations. I wanted a story; not a Bible lesson.

5 comments:

Romany said...

Praying for Abigail. I hope she gets the part.

It's a great story!

Michelle said...

Renee, there are definitely prejudices within the AA community as to shades and skin tones (speaking from personal experience within my own family and from talking with friends)

RAnn said...

I've heard that here in NO, there is a "paper bag" test for the more exclusive AA social organizations. If your skin is darker than a paper bag, you don't qualify. I guess it is that those with lighter skin had more white blood; they are decended from the mistresses of the master.

Renee said...

Thanks Michelle and Ruth for your insights.

Cynthia said...

I'm still confused about how these book reviews and author snapshot thing works...