What readers think of Take My Hand, plus links to write your own review.

What an incredible story with highlights of historical facts. What an eye opener for those interested in racial truth. I felt for the main characters the two young sisters whom were treated without remorse in their upbringing and where they lived. The saga of the entire family brings light in how families are socially and economically hurt by unjust decisions in our country. I felt for the human condition in which these sisters lived with their grandmother and widowed dad. A WOW Of A Book!

I had heard a few things about the sterilization of women but had no idea the extent of this practice and it’s targeted population. This book was informative, eye opening, relevant and the love Civil has for this family is heart warming and heart breaking! A must read and definitely something to remember.

“Take My Hand” by Dolen Perkins-Valdez features a nurse who works with sexual and reproductive health that receives the odd task of injecting birth control into eleven and fourteen-year-old sisters. Again, we go back and forth between the past and the present, foreshadowing that something went wrong with that arrangement.

I have to give an odd moment of props to the summary writers on the flap because they keep most of the plot points a secret. Of course, once the story progresses, you see where it is going, but that happens organically. Civil, the nurse, tries to help the kids and their families by giving them a new apartment, clothes, and cleaning supplies but finds out that the decision to provide them with birth control shots causes them more harm than good.

As with most Jim Crow novels set in the 1970s, I had to question how close to reality this fiction lived seriously. If such experimental procedures existed specifically on Black Americans, how recently did that occur? If they decided on a tubal ligation for little Erica and India before they even had relations (or their periods, for that matter), where did one draw the line about what was too intrusive for people with low incomes?

Like most award-winning novels about hard times and dark periods in our nation’s history, “Take My Hand” takes the opportunity to find positivity just as the characters do. Erica and India went through hell but still acted like kids. However, when we realize that the problem goes much deeper, we enter a legal drama to address a widespread problem in which health organizations play God and deem others unfit to reproduce.

A co-worker whose opinion I trust said that I read the most depressing stuff. When you pick award-winners, you will get a hold of the Holocaust, civil rights, and war. I like what they make me think about. If the world thought involuntary sterilization was acceptable in the 70s, we must question how much fiction was. It changes the whole abortion debate, too, not that I ever want to have that conversation.

It's teaches about a person, who did not know anything about the world, and another person who teaches that person, and gives him a path.

"Take My Hand" by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a novel that explores the complex relationships between women in the context of a small Southern town during the civil rights era. The story centers around three women: Gladys, a wealthy white woman who is struggling with her marriage and her place in society; June, a young black woman who has moved to the town to escape her troubled past; and Cille, a middle-aged black woman who has spent her whole life in the town and is deeply rooted in its traditions and social norms.

The novel is a beautifully written exploration of the tensions and conflicts that arise when different cultures and worldviews collide. Perkins-Valdez does an excellent job of capturing the nuances of the relationships between the three women and the ways in which their lives intersect and overlap.

The characters are well-drawn and complex, and the author does an excellent job of exploring their motivations and desires. The writing is lyrical and evocative, and the novel is filled with vivid descriptions of the Southern landscape and its people.

Overall, "Take My Hand" is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that explores important themes of race, class, and gender in a way that is both sensitive and nuanced. Highly recommended for fans of literary fiction and historical fiction alike.

What an eye opener of a book!

The plot starts off with this incredible nurse who finds a way to correct the wrongs of medical procedures done to poor black women in the south. A book I truly recommend to learn from mistakes that were done years ago. Good Read!

This story of a young nurse who answered the call to serve was a heart-warming read. The historical background of the South in the Roe v. Wade era was most enlightening. Loved Civil's embracing concern for her two patients and her endurance to bring justice to them. I felt the author did a remarkable job chronicling the story of involuntary sterilizations.

Take My Hand is a gut-wrenching fictionalized account of the almost unbelievable Relf v. Weinberger case – a modern nightmare bathed in racism, sexism, elitism, and ableism. The government was funding the sterilization of young women, some minors, primarily BIPOC, and mostly without their explicit consent under the guise of public good. The story is told through a first person account of a wealthy black nurse, new to her career, and utterly horrified by what she witnesses on the job.

The author, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, wrote such a compelling narrative that at times you forget who the first-person voice is because you feel what each character must be feeling so deeply. She has developed a thorough cast of characters to give a voice to this United States' atrocity. Her descriptions are raw, real and devoid of sugar-coating.

This is a novel that you will not be able to put down. This is a novel that will make you sick to your stomach. This is a novel that will make you cry. It will keep you up at night. Take My Hand is as beautifully written as it is heartbreaking.