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Title details for Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler - Available

Home for Erring and Outcast Girls

A Novel

by Julie Kibler
Karissa Vacker
Audiobook
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An emotionally raw and resonant story of love, loss, and the enduring power of friendship, following the lives of two young women connected by a home for “fallen girls,” and inspired by historical events.
 
“Home for Erring and Outcast Girls deftly reimagines the wounded women who came seeking a second chance and a sustaining hope.”—Lisa Wingate, author of Before We Were Yours
In turn-of-the-20th century Texas, the Berachah Home for the Redemption and Protection of Erring Girls is an unprecedented beacon of hope for young women consigned to the dangerous poverty of the streets by birth, circumstance, or personal tragedy. Built in 1903 on the dusty outskirts of Arlington, a remote dot between Dallas and Fort Worth’s red-light districts, the progressive home bucks public opinion by offering faith, training, and rehabilitation to prostitutes, addicts, unwed mothers, and “ruined” girls without forcibly separating mothers from children. When Lizzie Bates and Mattie McBride meet there—one sick and abused, but desperately clinging to her young daughter, the other jilted by the beau who fathered her ailing son—they form a friendship that will see them through unbearable loss, heartbreak, difficult choices, and ultimately, diverging paths.
A century later, Cate Sutton, a reclusive university librarian, uncovers the hidden histories of the two troubled women as she stumbles upon the cemetery on the home’s former grounds and begins to comb through its archives in her library. Pulled by an indescribable connection, what Cate discovers about their stories leads her to confront her own heartbreaking past, and to reclaim the life she thought she'd let go forever. With great pathos and powerful emotional resonance, Home for Erring and Outcast Girls explores the dark roads that lead us to ruin, and the paths we take to return to ourselves.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 23, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780525635635
      • File size: 413077 KB
      • Duration: 14:20:34

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 27, 2019
      Kibler (Calling Me Home) tells a heartbreaking story of women a century apart who have experienced trauma and attempt to move forward. Cate Sutton is a university librarian in 2017 Arlington, Tex., and she becomes fascinated by archived records of the Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls. Cate and her work-study student Laurel Medina bond over their own murky struggles as well as the story of Lizzie Bates, which is part of the home’s archives. In 1903, Lizzie takes her baby daughter to stay with her at the Texas home as Lizzie recovers from sexual abuse and drug addiction. There, she befriends another woman, Mattie Corder, and embraces the religious messages and safety provided by Brother JT Upchurch and his staff. Lizzie eventually stays on to continue helping troubled girls. As Cate and Laurel study the archives, they find strength to confront their own traumas together. Kibler’s poignant story effectively captures the raw pain and anger these women experience, but also shows them moving forward and finding support in other women.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Karissa Vacker's narration of this blend of historical fiction and a contemporary mystery is hampered by short chapters and continual shifts in point of view and time that impede the flow. The historical fiction, about two real-life residents of the Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls in the early 1900s, works better than the modern tale. Vacker gives Izzy and Mattie unique voices while sharing their heartrending stories. Sadly, the fictional Cate's contemporary mystery is a distraction that never connects to the history and drags the story down. The voices in Cate's story are less developed and distinctive, and the mystery seems gratuitous, further distracting from the more interesting and compelling historical part. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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