This book crush is for the adults. This THICK book is filled with stories, antidotes and facts about American history beginning with the first woman to step off a ship in the 1600's. The joys... the misconceptions... the horrors unspeakable - all in a fight to be apart of this nation.
Multiple times I would slam this book shut and think 'humanity is stupid.' How often do we repeat the same flawed thoughts?
Every time I am brought right back to remember that while we are extremely flawed we have a gracious and merciful God who has gone to the greatest lengths to make a way for us. A way to be redeemed, restored and forgiven. Before reading this book, my concept of this was so very broad. I got it, but not in the detailed and haunting way I do at this moment. We are truly lost in every way. Some of the things that seemed obvious and logical a hundred years ago are completely ridiculous. Yet, how many things do we regard as common knowledge that later will seem unthinkable.
This is just my reaction to the text - I need to make it clear that it is under no certain terms a christian written or slanted book. It reads more like a news article or history book. Maybe not as dry but it is not partial to christians or any faith or race. It speaks of the lives of indians, colonist, pioneers, slaves of all kinds, plantation wives, writers, doctors... anyone who had a voice or wrote a thought in their diary regarding the lives of women.
I am curious to how much to the text will stay with me and for how long. Right now it is so fresh in mind that it colors my thoughts. For instance....
Upon hearing a girl talk about giving birth and say "women have been doing this for 100s of years with just a midwife..." I am immediately flooded with thoughts about how childbirth has changed over time. If only this girl had the slightest clue what birth a hundred years ago looked like. Would she really be so flippant to think our current medical technology as inconvenient? What would she say about the way the medical community has gained it's experience - for it was not an easy or humane road.
This book has lifted the veil and made me think hard about life in those varies time periods. It's more than the thrill of making butter like a pioneer - it's the wonder that the pioneer woman survived at all. I learned pioneers heading West were often middle to upper class families because they had the money to actually purchase the wagon and supplies. These were fine ladies not poor waifs. Ladies who society expected to be genteel proper. Yet they braved a land where they would be pushed to the limits physically emotionally, often times end up in a home with dirt floors and no husband to speak of.
If you like to learn things. If you enjoy history. If you are a woman and feel at times that life is unfair. This book is, at it's very least, a really interesting read.
