The Poisonwood Bible was the most recommended book on the Mumsnet Feminist Book Club board when I started my #readingonlybookswrittenbywomen. Honestly, you'd think I'd admitted to kicking puppies for shits and giggles due to the level of shock by my admittance that I hadn't read it.
For those heretics who have not yet read it, The Poisonwood Bible is the story of an American family who travel to the Congo as missionaries in 1959. The father is an emotionally abusive, misogynistic and racist evangelical Baptist who drags his wife and 4 daughters across the planet in order to "save the savages through Christ". He's an arsehole whose arrogance tears his family apart. The redemption of his daughters in postcolonial Africa is the story of women paying for the crimes of men but it's also the story of sisterhood and the binds of family that tie us together.
I could go on forever blathering about my love for this book but the best review was from a woman sitting near me on train who told me she was jealous that I was reading it for the first time. Now, I feel the same. I am jealous of those just reading it for the first time.
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