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 … 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.
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I read an early copy of this book and I was taken in from page one. The characters are drawn with such depth and the challenges they face are real and relevant. It’s a book to read and discuss – the best kind of book club book.
A world in which young, single mothers had few options—and even fewer advocates—comes to life in Julie Kibler’s skilled hands. Based on the history of the Berachah Industrial Home in Arlington, Texas, Home for Erring and Outcast Girls deftly reimagines the wounded women who came seeking a second chance and a sustaining hope. Their lives are raw and heartbreaking, their struggles an answer to a timeless question: Can friendship heal us after the world has broken us?
Home for Erring and Outcast Girls is a moving tale of friendship and resilience. It is the story of three different women, each of them betrayed and abandoned, and the ways in which they find their way home. Emotional. Raw. Compelling. Julie Kibler writes with skill, compassion, and grace.
Living in Arlington where this book is set, I felt a strong connection to the home and the characters. I learned so much about this home and how it helped young women at the turn of the century escape bad situations and turn their lives around.
While based on an actual place and actual residents of the home, the story is fiction but is well researched and could possibly have been what happened to these women.
I have loved everything this author has written and the amount of detail she provided in real places and events of the time. I never would have guessed that I would enjoy historical novels as much as I do and want to know so much more.
Another heartfelt and beautifully written story from Julie Kibler. I couldn’t wait for this book to come out, and it was certainly worth the wait. Once again, Kibler has crafted a cast of characters you can’t help but care for, and a story that is at once heartbreaking and hopeful, raw and tender. I devoured every lovely page.
Julie Kibler has done it again! Home for Erring and Outcast girls is a beautifully written, heartbreaking novel. I loved it, not only because of the wonderful characters and compelling storyline, but because it so artfully illustrates past and present discrimination against women, and how organized religion can save some people but destroy others. It’s a relevant book for our time with a twist I didn’t see coming!!
Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler tells a heart wrenching story in Split Time from 1900 to 2017. It is a story of a sin sick world and the effect of sin in each character‘s life. It is based on the history of a Christian Mission home for women and children in Texas. While not traditional Christian fiction, this book does offer a message of Christian compassion and grace. I found this book slow and difficult to get interested in especially Cate’s story which did not seem to fit well and thought some of the characters‘ stories were incomplete in that timeline. I enjoyed reading the historical story with all the details of the Berachah Home.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from First to Read. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. I appreciate the opportunity and thank the author and publisher for allowing me to read, enjoy and review this book.
When I read a book as magnificent as this one—written with the most beautiful prose, and a story that squeezed my heart so much that sometimes it was hard to breathe—it always takes me a while to put all my feelings together, doing justice to the story and its author. Home For Erring and Outcast Girls follows the lives of two young women, Lizzie and Mattie, who seek refuge from heartbreak, poverty, and illness at the Berachah Home for the Redemption and Protection for Erring Girls in 1904. I was emotionally involved with all of the girls and their stories, brought to tears many times by the injustices they suffered, but buoyed by feelings of hope and resiliency. I was equally moved by the story of Cate, our modern day heroine, a reclusive librarian who combs through the archives of the Berachah Home, connecting her own story to that of the outcast girls of the past. So many different themes are woven throughout this book but at the forefront are two of my favorites—family and home—in all of their iterations.
This story took me on wonderful women’s journey through history and into modern times. There are great juxtapositions of what can make one “an erring outcast” woman from the early part of the century through to today. There is a twist that resonates powerfully. How or why does one become an outcast today?
Personally I love the beauty of the Women’s Historical Fiction as well as the modern storyline.
I wanted to shout out loud “You’ve come a long way Baby” yet the painful heart wrenching compromises Women have made for hundreds of years still find themselves repeated through to today.
The writing was wonderful. I was placed into the story with the scents, sights and sounds from the rural settings to bustling city life. I am completely invested in the women who lived and left the home as well as those who found themselves researching their lives. These women have firmly found a place in my heart with their incredible strength and honest frailties. I felt the religious aspects of life at the home and personal lives were treated honestly and graciously. I’m buying copies for my daughters and their daughters because quite frankly some aspects of the progress for women is taking just too long. I was given a free copy of this book in lieu of an honest review through #NetGalley
I loved Julie Kibler’s debut novel Calling Me Home, one of my favorites. I was grateful to received an ARC of #Home for Erring and Outcast Girls, from #Net Galley and #Penguin Random House, for an honest review.
This novel was very well researched and a fascinating history of the Berachah Home for wayward girls in Texas. It’s the story of Lizzie and her daughter who seek refuge there, after being abandoned by her husband, and used her for gain, by lending her out to other men. A short time after they arrive, Mattie comes along with her dying child Cap. They make their home in this tight knit and rigidly controlled religious community.
While this story was aching to be told, I struggled to keep characters straight, as it jumped back and forth in time. The whole story of Cate, both her early teens and her post college life, in which she researched and followed the history of the Berachah Home, just added to the confusing cast of characters and timelines.
I wanted to like this book, more than I can say. Wonderful story, painstaking research and a talented author, with the ability to tell a compelling tale with well developed characters. This just didn’t come together for me, although
I will take away the heartbreak of Lizzie, Mattie and all the other Erring girls that found their way to the refuge, in turn of the century Texas. Their story needed to be told, another bad mark on our country’s history of abusing women and treating them as second class citizens, which unfortunately continues to occur. It is worth the read, to hear their story and their struggles,
and the road they paved for those of us that followed!
Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler
A powerful reminder of the strength of women and how they support each other after rejection by family and society. Based on historical events, Julie Kibler weaves the tales of two women from the 1900’s with two women from current day. Hidden histories of the past connect with secrets women of today still hold. Historical fiction creates empathy for the past. It can also serve as a model for us today. The Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls offered hope and education without judgment to “ruined girls” and kept children and mothers together. This story will bring compassion and inspiration to those who read it.
This is truly a thought-provoking book. Even if it is novel. (I think that is the best kind, don’t you?) It truly shows how far women as a whole have come over the last century. Home is where we share each other’s burdens. It does not have to be the home we were born into, nor the one we mistakenly or unwisely married into. It is the place where we can be safe and secure; where we can be happy and kind; where we can be our true selves because of the contentment in our soul and the unconditional love of others. Circumstances may play a large role in our lives for good or evil. It is how we live our lives despite our circumstances (or even because of our circumstances) that matters. A truly heart-warming story with all kinds of emotions and heartbreak thrown in. A must-read!
An interesting fiction mixed with history surrounding the women who found refuge at the Berachah Home in a Texas town in the early 1900s. A contemporary librarian uncovers the histories of several women over the course of the decades during the home’s operation. As she researches some of residents, buried in the cemetery near the library, who were known to have resided at the home, she unveils the long-hidden events of her own life, which ironically parallel the “outcast or fallen women” of a century earlier. This is a book certainly worth reading.
Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler is a work of fiction based on the real Berachah Industrial Home, a church run institution for unwed or otherwise abandoned and homeless pregnant girls in early 1900s Texas. The home opened in 1903 and closed in 1935, assisting approximately 3000 erring and outcast girls and their children.
This story follows two young mothers living at the Berachah home and two women who become intrigued by their story while at University of Texas Arlington, which now stands on the home’s former site.
The depths ‘ruined’ young women were forced to sink to for survival so long ago was appalling, inhuman. At that time a wife, daughter, any woman, was property to be used any way their family, or any man, saw fit – and yet there was no responsibility to her. If she refused, heaven forbid became pregnant, or simply no longer held their interest – the girl could be turned out into the street with no means of supporting herself – and often punished for getting herself into the situation. Surprisingly/not surprisingly, this story illustrates how little attitudes toward abused young women have changed in the last century. Can we say #metoo movement?
The story jumps back and forth between 1900s, 1990s, and 2017, but is well written and easy to follow. I immediately came to care deeply for all the women, each character well developed and with a rich back story.
Although there are a few predictable moments, there are many unexpected twists. In fact I quiet embarrassed myself – once gasping out loud and once spontaneously bursting into tears – all while in a crowded waiting room. On the upside, a whole room full of people just pre-ordered the book!
This is a thought provoking book, but also an enjoyable story I definitely recommend.
Does history repeat itself? In a way it does, but it is handled differently, or is it?
We get an in-depth look at a home that was established for women in the early 1900’s, although not all were accepted here, made me think of the poor souls that were turned away.
We look and walk with two of the woman who went to The Berachah Home in Texas, and have a look at what happened to them to bring them here. This is not an easy life for either of them, and it could have been any one.
I did love the author’s notes at the end of this book, the story is fictional, and has literary license, but is based on actual people. I always enjoy these updates!
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Crown, and was not required to give a positive review.
The Home for Erring and Outcast Girls is an incredible story of friendship, survival and second chances. This story is based, in part, on the work done by Berachah Home in Texas. This is a story of a group of young women who had been dealt a bad hand by fate but were taken in and given a second chance at life. I was intrigued by the story of the Berachah Home, a place that embraced young women despite having a child outside marriage, contrary to societal norms.
The story toggles between present day and the past. In the past, we are introduced to Lizzie, a young girl who has disgraced her family because she is pregnant out of wedlock and is cast out by her family. Lizzie is found in dire straits by Sister Susie and taken to the Berachah Home.
In August 2017 Cate has recently relocated to Arlington, Texas to take a job as an assistant librarian. On the first day in her new town, Cate happens upon a small cemetery with a plaque about the Berachah Home. Both the plaque and the Home pique Cate’s curiosity. So she begins a new position with a new interest in the Home.
I found myself drawn into the Cate and her story and so curious about the Berachah Home just as she was. This is a well written story of friendships, heartache, and survival. I was captivated by the characters who are both sympathetic and strong and invested in the characters’ losses and successes. This is a book that every woman should read. Thank you to #Netgalley and #CrownPublishing for approving my request. All the opinions expressed in this review are solely my own..
The preview suggests the cemetery was the home of these erring and outcast girls. Really.
This is about a real place and the main characters are based on women who lived, loved and lost so much but throughout it all the endured and survived against terrible odds. I found it very emotional at times, it is a story that shows the real courage and resilience that we have when we think we have lost everything and there is no hope, this home and the people there gave women and children care, love and hope. Be prepared for a few hours of sitting and reading as this is a story that I certainly didn’t want to put down and leave till I had finished the book.
Some girls who lost their way were welcomed to Berachah Home for the Redemption and Protection of Erring Girls in the 20th century. They were allowed to keep their baby and taught homemaking skills.
The book shifts back and forth between the early 1900s and 2017. Lizzie and Maddie lived in Barachah. Cate was interested in learning all she could about that time.
I was anxious to read this book. The topic is one that I am very interested in. However, this book seemed slow. There were too many characters to learn, especially in the beginning. After about 60% in, I truly wanted to set it down and not finish it. I could not bring myself to care about the characters.
This is not a bad book; it simply wasn’t for me. Please read other reviews for a more balanced take away.
I received an ARC from Crown Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affects my opinion or rating of this book.
This was my first novel by Julie Kibler, and I will be on the lookout for more of her work! The characters are well developed, and make you love them and sympathize for them. The struggles of women were real and this book illustrated some of the effects. Well written, and I highly recommend to historical fiction readers!