The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
4.5 Stars
I am so glad my friend Chrissie recommended this book to me because it truly impacted me learning all about Belle da Costa Greene's life. I am so interested in her now and everything about the J.P. Morgan library!
This is a historical fiction that is a biographical fictionalized story (pulled from many historical details) about Belle da Costa Greene, who was top American financier J.P. Morgan's personal librarian. To see Belle as a black woman who passed as white her entire professional career, hiding her true ethnicity the entire time, I was truly moved and impacted by her story and struggles to keep her secret safe. I love how strong and smart she was and seeing how she was able to be so successful in her life in the early 1900s, looking back and knowing that she was a black woman specifically during that time, was beautiful and eye opening to see. Even though she passed as a white woman during the time, she left such an impact on the world we know today. This story really opened my eyes to the period after the Civil War too. I'm so glad I read this and learned about Belle! The only reason I am giving it 4.5 instead of 5 is some parts were a bit slow and I did not care for some of the sexual scenes but it's still a great historical read.
*Content warnings: intense racism, misogyny, and the trauma of passing as white in the early 1900s, abortion, infidelity, emotional abuse, abandonment, and heavy alcohol consumption, a few sexual scenes that go a bit more above fade to black but not extremely explicit either.
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