3.5 - I didn't hate it, but didn't love it. I much preferred the chapters about Lina, although they were very unrealistic and simplistic. I mean everything just worked out way too easily for her, there is no way she would've been able to find all of these connections in a few days. And to just stumble on Jasper - yeah right. This was a case where switching back and forth between chapters didn't work. But overall, I found myself more interested as it read on and I kept in mind that this wasn't 5 star writing. Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell. New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the “perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.I really wanted to like this book more. Maybe it was the writing or the characters but this book didn't grab me like I thought it would. At one point, I just didn't care about Josephine or Lina, especially about the part about Lina's mother. Tara Conklin should have focused more on Josephine and told her story with more feelings than try to make us care for Lina. I thought this would have been like "The Girl You Left Behind", but it's not. Jojo Moyes did a perfect job with going back and forth between the two ladies and making us love both characters. Unfortunately, Tara failed at that.
What do You think about The House Girl (2013)?
Liked both stories individually but could not appreciate the dual narration.
—lukearmfield
I give the historical story a four, but I rate the modern day story a three.
—Nkad
Enjoyed the book but it dragged in some spots.
—Britteny
