Play Book Tag discussion

I read this about 6 years ago, for a bookclub, and I just reread it, for bookclub! This time I appreciated it more, and rated it 4 stars up from 3 stars. Historical fiction is one of my fav genres and this one is loosely based on the lives of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, who were prominent abolitionists and suffragettes in the first half of 1800s. The sisters grew up in a prominent Charleston family. On her 11th birthday, Sarah is gifted a slave, Handful, who is the same age. The chapters alternate between the first person narratives of Sarah and Hetty over 35 years, as they grow together and apart in their overlapping but oppositional worlds. The culture of the south pre-Civil War has imprisoned both of them. The book is filled with descriptions of the physical abuses inflicted on the enslaved, and their attempts to free their minds. Sarah and Angelina are trapped by the limitations and expectations placed upon women. As Handful says to Sarah, “My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round.” Eventually Sarah is able to "escape" to Philadelphia where she becomes a Quaker, but even then the cultural expectations are forcing her to make choices. The book does an excellent job of contrasting the walls imprisoning Sarah and Handful as well as Handful's mother, Charlotte, and Sarah's siblings, Angelina and even her brother Thomas. I expect to be visiting Charleston sometime in the not-too-distant future and will have a different historical perspective after rereading this book.