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

Excellent writing, painful true subject matter. Slavery in America is a fact and the history of this country’s founding. White Americans all need to know this fact and accept it. This is a powerful book and I highly recommend it.

Take my hand is a heartwrenching and beautiful story of horrible medical experiments being performed on your black girls. Civil is a kind and caring nurse who discovers this atrocity and fights to shine a light on these acts. It's so sad to know that though this was based in 1970, our healthcare system still is full of bias and racism.

This was a book I was unable to put down. It is a reality that both shocks me and yet it doesn’t. For women to have to fight for freedom of choice still goes on today. The book is profoundly moving as it is inspired by true events in the south who fought for the freedom of choice. The book is a great reality check.

Inspired by the real life case (Relf v. Weinberger), Perkins-Valdez's richly observed novel is blistering and incisive story of a Black nurse whose young patients' has reproductive injustices inflicted upon them because of their race and class.

It is 1973, recent nursing school graduate Civil Townsend is excited to be starting her job in her hometown of Montgomery, Alabama and do her part to help women in her African American community make choices about their bodies. Civil is alarmed when she is assigned to give regularly scheduled birth control shots to young sisters aged 11 and 13, either who is sexually active. When Civil receives unsatisfactory answers from her boss, she decides to stop giving the girls the shots. Then, without Civil's knowledge, a surgical procedure will forever alter the lives of those involved.

This is an emotional compelling and heart-wrenching storyline that tugged at my heartstrings. As a reader I found that the author's writing superbly drawn characters evoked my emotions and the seamless integration of the meticulously researched historical details provided the outrage that is needed to make sure this does not happen again.

This is a great book club discussion book for groups who like to discuss weighty and timely issues.

A much needed book to understand the legacy of injustice!

Take my Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a tour de force of a novel. Inspired by true events, the story follows Civil Townsend, a fresh out of nursing school woman, working at a reproductive health clinic in Montgomery, AL. Civil quickly discovers that impoverished woman are being sterilized without their consent. When sterilization happens to two young sisters (her patients) she jumps into action and a law suit follows.

As Civil becomes more entwined with the sisters and their family, we also learn more about Civil's family. Each character in this novel is so well developed that you feel as if you know them. Watching Civil, as a young nurse, try to effect change in the sisters' lives is uplifting and painful as she struggles to come to grips with what she should and shouldn't do.

We also get to know Civil as a woman the verge of retirement from a successful career as a doctor. The author is skilled at working between the two eras and weaves the story line between the two.

The novel is ultimately about control and how the best intentions of people and the government can frequently end in tragic circumstances.

Well written historical fiction about another dark moment in American history. This is an open look at medical malpractice brought upon the poor and under-educated among our populace. I was unaware of the procedures that were done at this time in our history. Good for all of us to know.

The fictional part of the story felt very real. I could not stop reading this book.

It's 2016 and Civil Townsend, now in retirement, feels compelled to share with her daughter, a piece of dark history in her life that took place in the early 1970s, when she took a job at a family planning clinic in Alabama…

Civil is fresh out of school, with big dreams for her future, when she is introduced to her first patients- two young girls who are to receive birth control injections.

Civil is shocked by their near homeless living conditions, and by the age of the girls- one of which was only eleven years old and hadn't even started menstruating.

Believing she was doing the right thing, she intervenes on the family's behalf, pushing the boundaries of her job description.

But she also begins to question the healthcare decisions made on behalf of these girls and others like them, once again taking matters into her own hands.

This novel is based on shocking true events, where the government, through the guise of free healthcare, manipulated both the poor women the clinic catered to, as well as the healthcare professionals who thought they were doing the best thing for their patients.

Emotional, terrifying and powerful- this rich novel remembers shocking atrocities, but also serves as an eye-opening and poignant cautionary tale. A must read!

Take My Hand by Perkins-Valdez is a well written and interesting novel that brings to light an experimental medical treatment to which poor, Black women and young girls were exposed and, for some their future reproductive health was forever changed. The novel takes place in Alabama and focuses on two Black sisters, aged 11 and 13, and the nurse assigned to them. This abuse took place in the early 1970s, decades after experimental medical treatments were conducted on the Tuskegee airmen and Henrietta Lacks without their understanding and informed consent. I recommend this book to others interested in social justice issues as another glimpse in the struggle between the haves and have nots.