A review by howifeelaboutbooks
Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

5.0

When Miss Isabelle asks Dorrie, her hairstylist of ten years, to drive her to a funeral a thousand miles away, Dorrie is shocked. She had no idea what she had come to Miss Isabelle - but still, she says yes, and as the two women journey from Texas to Ohio, both of them start to share their life stories. Dorrie, an African-American woman, is thirty-six, struggling to raise two teenagers on her own while wondering if she should fully trust the new man in her life. Miss Isabelle, nearing ninety, is a white woman who once fell in love with a black man. The story is beautifully written while dealing with sensitive issues that still exist in our world more than we care to admit. It's told in alternating chapters of present day and 1939, switching points of view from Dorrie to Miss Isabelle, but not in a way that is distracting or confusing, just seamless, and the best way to tell the complete story. Read in one day, and already want to read it again.