House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson

 genre: historical fiction

Ruby and Eleanor, two young women living on the East Coast in the 1950s, both who have been dreams.  As young Black Americans, they know they have to work twice as hard in a world that never seems to give them a break.  For Ruby, digging her way out of poverty is dependent upon getting a special scholarship to go to college.  For Eleanor, her dreams involve the library and hopefully, someday, being a wife and mother.  For both of these women, their dreams are going to require a crazy amount of sacrifice and the kind of strength you can only get through experience.

It took a while to figure out how these two women's stories were going to come together (it's told in turns from each of their perspectives) and once I did, I definitely liked it. It is a sad story, parts of it are very upsetting, but it also just exudes the power of women, especially during this time period.  It's a story of class and even of privilege within the Black community while at the same time it's about the policing of women's bodies and how devastating and traumatic it can be when our choices are taken away. I'm giving it four stars because it's a well-written story about real things that happened to real people, even if it's not a "true" story.   While I just wasn't riveted enough to listen to it all the time, I'm glad I have this story in my mind now.