I worked really hard to acquire this paperback. On a trip to San Diego, I saw it while shopping, but I'd already bought four books. The cover really drew me in, so I specifically walked back to the bookstore the next day and bought it. I didn't really realize it was part of a series, but there's generations between the books, so it didn't matter. Also, this book originally came out in 1938, so the language in it is horribly dated.
Ann and Corrie May live very different lives in Louisiana during the Civil War era. Ann has her every issue taken care of and lives on a plantation, while Corrie May struggles to get by. Both of their lives are going to change once the war hits.
Corrie May drove me nuts. Her use of the n-word was excessive, and while I suppose her view made sense in the moment, she really did not like slaves. In her view, they did jobs for free, and there wasn't any work left for people like her. Corrie May was a selfish, manipulative woman who never learned true compassion. She was focused on how to elevate her position in the world. Everyone else was uppity and didn't deserve her attention. She even made Budge (her poor fiancé who was killed) feel guilty enough to leave his property and join the army. Then she wanted him to quit. There's so many instances where she would do whatever she wanted and basically ignored how it would affect anyone else. She just wanted to stick it to people who didn't live like her.
Ann's portion of the story was much better, and while she started out the Southern Belle, she had a true arc where she was better by the end of it. Corrie May, on the other hand, grovels up to Ann but leaves by chastising her. Corrie May needed a good slap. This is really bad to say, but I was a bit bummed she didn't die at the end. I say that because so many characters die in this book, and some of the deaths were sad.
Anyway, I just wanted this book to end. I was tempted to quit reading it, but I wanted to find out what happened to Ann. The next book in the series is about descendants of Ann and Corrie May's families, but I'm not going anywhere near it!
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