kristennm1972 's review for:

A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline

5.0

---

I loved this imagining of the life of the subject of Andrew Wyeth's famous painting, Christina's World. The author uses historical details about Christina Olson as a thematic underpinning for the novel. Her family's adventuresome seafaring past contrasts with Christina's more circumscribed life. And her ancestors' involvement with persecuting women during the Salem Witch Trials makes the connection to the fates of transgressive women, a connection that is reinforced by Christina's affinity for Emily Dickinson's poetry and a reference to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." But while Christina's life is limited in some respects--by her gender (her father forbids her from continuing her education and becoming a teacher), by her physical disability (getting around is extremely difficult for her), by her class (she can't be a suitable partner for the wealthy, Harvard-educated boy she falls in love with)--the novel also shows us Christina laying claim to her piece of the world. By giving voice to her inner life, the author reveals a woman who is sharp, strong-willed, loyal. She lives a full life that includes friendship, family, grief, love, heartbreak, and ultimately--in the most basic, human sense--recognition. In the first third of the novel, Christina as narrator says, "I read once that the act of observing changes the nature of what is observed," a sentence I highlighted. I think it's both a caution and a gift.