Ruth's Journey: The Story of Mammy from Gone with the Wind by Donald McCaigMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Historical Fiction is not my typical choice for reading material. That being said, I had to read this book. I did struggle with keeping my attention on the book through a lot of the historical background sections but the story was strong enough to keep me reading. Ruth's journey begins in Santo Domingo, from there it is a complicated journey through a very important part in US history, the lead up to the Civil War.
Since the point of this novel is following Ruth's journey, I don't want to give too much away and that's hard because there is just so much good in this novel. For me some of good was reading along and coming across reference that you know will be important later in this story and in Gone with the Wind. You'll be reading along and there's a disdainful mention of those Irish O'Hara brothers, a revered mention of the Butlers of Low Country, a bit later an O'Hara mentions Tara and one of the biggest was discussion about what people think of that Mr. Lincoln person. Oh and let's not forget Ashley Wilkes and his appearances at Tara.
The book was broken down into three parts. I really enjoyed the third section the best. This section was told from Ruth's point of view and tells the story of how Scarlet becomes Scarlet. It's the last leg of the journey to Gone with the Wind and needed to be told by Ruth. Ruth has been around three generations of women in this family and through her we see how certain traits seemed to be passed down.
Before I even finished the book, I had been recommending it to people. I think it was a fascinating story and I'll be going back to read his other book Rhet Butler's People.
I received an ebook ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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