Very important book with important conversations. Well written and even though some hard topics, easy to read.

Set in the 70's in Alabama, this book, which is based on real events follows a young Black nurse as she begins her career in a family planning clinic and uncovers the horrendous way that the medical industry exploited the poor and Black communities.

This was devastating to read, but Valdez did an amazing job of using her central character to highlight this traumatic part of US history whilst also focusing on the love, hope, determination and power that these communities held.

This was a stunning novel with such beautifully rich characters and one that kept you turning the page from beginning to end. Highly recommend. 4.5 stars.

An incredibly powerful book which covers an ugly truth in America’s history. I enjoyed the characters and the search for justice. Thanks for letting me review this book!

Oh wow! This book! I loved it!
It tells the story of Civil, a young nurse who works in a family planning clinic. During the course of her work she meets two sister and their family. Over the course of a year she becomes part of the family but the girls experience something awful and Civil feels responsible so makes it her mission to get justice.
I couldn’t get enough of this book and was genuinely sad when it was over. I can’t recommend it enough.

Brilliantly immersive, utterly compelling, and truly shocking. Erica and India's story is something I won't forget for a very long time.

Even though this book is set in the 1970's, it is such a timely and important read in the wake of Roe V Wade and all the discussions on female autonomy.
Based on true events, we follow Civil, straight out of nursing college and into her first job at a family planning clinic. This is Alabama and Civil wants to make a difference in her community and give the people the best possible care. But her eyes are opened in her first week when she is sent to do home visits to the William's family.
Living in a shack on the grounds of a white man's farm, the William's are in rags and haven't washed in weeks. The girls, India and Erica are only 11 and 13 but are on birth control. They have no interest in boys, but the decision has been taken out of their hands. Because they are poor and black, the clinic have decided there is no way they should be bringing babies into the world.
Civil is shocked and angry at what she discovers and things are only going to get worse.

This story was beautifully told and I loved the characters especially the girls. You felt the anger and the rage and the quest to fight for their rights. This is an awful part of American history I knew nothing about. Thousands of men, women and children of colour were forcibly sterilized. Informative and moving, such an important read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC to review. This book is a show-stopper. Absolutely beautiful and very moving.

This book was an eye opener for me, and one which I would recommend to people for this reason alone.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

This book is quite unlike any historical fiction book I have read before.
It centres around a newly qualified nurse who gets a job at a family planning clinic and who realises two young girl patients of hers are being given contraception (and are later permanently sterilised) despite one of then not even reaching puberty and neither are sexually active. The girls are just 11 and 13 years old.
The incredulity I felt reading the Williams' story was just staggering. The fact this was happening all over America long before the nurse Civil was able to raise awareness and halt the sterilisation programme is mind-blowing to me, and Dolen Perkins-Valdez does an incredible job of portraying the injustices through the story. I spent most of the book shaking my head in disbelief with tears in my eyes and my heart in a vice.
This book will stay with me forever

A heartbreaking but brilliant read that will stay with you long after you read it. The book is incredibly moving and is unputdownable . It has so hard to imagine that this book is loosely based on a true story and highlights horrendous injustices. Don't miss this book as it is superb.

Take My Hand is a shocking and heart-breaking read that leaves a profound effect on the reader. It's a story you become fully immersed in and stays with you long after you've read it.

This was easily one of the best books I've read this year. The story is incredibly well paced, and based in real, horrific history. As I was reading this book, I was constantly googling things like Missisippi Appendectomies or the Tuskegee experiment. Aside from being a brilliant story, it's an eye opening book that's so important and necessary. The history of Black people and medical racism is awful and should never be forgotten - Perkins Valdez manages to keep our eyes open with her wonderful story and characters.

I adored this book! I was able to participate in an online chat with the author through my book club and was fascinated by her story about how she put this book together. As well as being a very important story about a landmark moment in American history, this is a powerful novel about standing up for what is right, I don't want to say too much about it. Do what I did and go in blind - you won't be sorry! One of my favourite reads this year by far. Highly recommended!

Absolutely phenomenal, heartbreaking and vital to read. Dolen Perkins-Valdez has shone a light on an utterly disgusting corner of social history which was still occurring far too recently. Take My Hand is inspired by true events

In 1973 Alabama, Civil Townsend is a newly qualified nurse, keen to help women make their own choices in family planning. But she soon comes across two young teenage sisters who are being treated against their will, at just 11 and 13. The state has determined that the best thing for poor Black girls is to be on birth control whether they need it or not; or in other words, eugenics.

The tale is marvellously written and utterly devastating, an honour to read it and a tragedy that it needed to be written.

This was such a good book. I love historical fiction, especially when it is about eras/ situations that I previously knew nothing about and this was definitely one of those books. It was so well researched and so compelling in its narrative that not only did I love reading it but I felt that I learned too. A really enjoyable read and perfect for any fans of historical fiction. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

I really enjoyed this book and found it incredibly moving. I was unaware of the issues around women's bodies and racism, and feel it should be an essential text in schools! The characters were beautifully crafted and the story was heartbreaking at times.
Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for my copy of this novel.

Firstly, thank you to Ericka @_pagesandleaves who organised a great buddy read which was much needed given the subject matter.

Inspired by true events, this story send us to Alabama in the 1970s and follows Civil Townsend who starts working at her local Family Planning Clinic.

It’s one I’ve put off writing a review about as it is so hard to do it justice but I found it really compelling and so informative at the same time. The courage and resilience that these characters went through was incredible. Heartbreaking too for these girls whose lives were changed forever…
I had never heard of these monstrosities but The Underground Railroad did mention some that were done to Black men during the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and it would make your blood boil…

A buddy reader in the group also mentioned Henrietta Lacks on a similar topic and it sounds so good. I look forward to listening to it once I’m finished my current audio which is putting me in a right slump…

Thank you to @netgalley and @orionbooks for the ARC in return for my honest review. Take My Hand is out now. Highly recommend !

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily and it reflects my personal opinion.
This is the first book I have read by this author, and as a retired nurse who started training in the year Civil starts her job the publisher's information interested me. The narrative swapped at intervals between the past and recent present, but this was clear in the book and did not interrupt the flow of the story. The events were described in a realistic way, with emotions fully explored and it is easy to understand how Civil became so closely involved in the family. I do not wish to include any spoilers but I cannot emphasise enough that the content of the book appalled me as a nurse, it is almost impossible to believe that such events were allowed to occur so recently as less than 50 years ago. The book is amazing, interesting, incredible and so emotional, it should become a classic and part of set literature and history courses. To say I enjoyed it would not be correct but it is hard to think of a suitable adjective; I can only say it has made an impact upon me.

This is a moving story based on events that took place in the American South in the 1970s. It deals with a shameful episode in the history of public health in the state of Alabama, with poor black women and even young girls being coerced or conned or blackmailed into consenting (in the loosest, most uninformed sense) to take untested contraception or submit to sterilisation.

The story is compellingly structured, recounted by sixty-something-year-old Civil Townsend and juxtaposing a journey she takes in the present day with events that unfolded in 1973 when she was a freshly graduated nurse. Her first job is in a clinic which does outreach sexual health work with the poorest black families, offering contraception to women and sexually active girls. Her first patients are two young girls, neither of whom is sexually active, and she soon starts to question the ethics not only of administering contraceptive injections, but also in fact of using a hormone that has not yet been approved by the FDA, and which may be carcinogenic.

She is young and imbued with a zeal to do good, and her naivety is an innocent manifestation of a more sinister institutional belief that the health system is justified in using methods that border on the coercive with a section of the population. Poverty and lack of education and black ethnicity are enough justification for a racist and misogynistic policy that smacks of eugenics, and interferes in people's lives to the extent of changing them forever without their consent.

As Civil's conscience and civic sense awakens, she becomes involved in a lawsuit that exposes what is happening, and draws comparisons with other shameful episodes such as the 40 years of withholding syphilis treatment from poor men in the name of research. The modern-day Civil's story shows us her political awakening as well as her personal development in terms of maturity and complexity of thinking.

The narrative style is readable, but not especially literary - this is all about the story being told, and style is less of a consideration. It can be a bit overstated at times, an a bit heightened. It wears its heart on its sleeve, and might have been more effective had the sentiment been toned down a bit. But there is a lot that makes this book worth reading, with worthy subject matter dealt with in a compelling way.

“A year never passes without me thinking of them. India. Erica. Their names are stitched inside every white coat I have ever worn. I tell this story to stitch their names inside your clothes, too. A reminder to never forget. Medicine has taught me, really taught me, to accept the things I cannot change. A difficult-to-swallow serenity prayer. I’m not trying to change the past. I’m telling it in order to lay these ghosts to rest.”

My thanks to Orion Publishing Group Phoenix for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Take My Hand’ by Dolen Perkins-Valdez in exchange for an honest review.

This powerful novel was inspired by true events and is set primarily in Montgomery, Alabama during the early 1970s. Given the date and location it will come as no surprise that this was a harrowing tale.

The novel opens in 2016 as Dr. Civil Townsend begins to tell her adult daughter about the events of her early career when in 1973 fresh out of nursing school she was determined to make a difference in her community.

Civil begins working at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic where she intends to help women make their own choices. During her first week she is assigned to visit the Williams sisters, who live with their widowed father and grandmother in a tiny, tumbledown cabin.

Even though India and Erica are only eleven and thirteen because they are poor and black Social Services demand they be placed on birth control. Civil becomes close to the family and begins to question these policies including the safety of the shots they are given. Then things get worse. …

Civil’s voice throughout is very compelling. She describes with hindsight the events including the social issues of the day.

‘Take My Hand’ is no doubt a timely novel given the recent revelation about the possible overturning of Roe vs Wade, which in the timeline of this novel has only just been ruled on by the Supreme Court.

While its characters are fictional in her Author’s Note Dolen Perkins-Valdez writes of the legal case that had brought to light a shocking chapter of American history.

Overall, I found ‘Take My Hand’ not only an engaging read but one that highlighted this historical injustice but celebrated the power of friendship, love, and compassion. I would expect it to be popular with reading groups for its themes and scope for discussion.