The Girl with the Hazel Eyes by Callie Browning

I picked this up during the month of June because the cover had been catching my eye for about a year now. And it's always nice to read about the Caribbean experience from someone straight from the islands.  

Lia has traveled from Barbados to the US for the first time to write the memoir of the infamous Susan Taylor. She's not a known writer but Susan sees something in her that she deems worthy of telling her story the correct way. It was very interesting the way some parts would flash back to the Barbados in the 1960s. 

Susan Taylor lived in a much different time then now when women were expected to birth babies, cook, and clean all day. Her father didn't even want to pay for her to go to school as she started to get older because he believed her place was in the kitchen and she didn't need to go to school for that. She has aspirations bigger than most women in her village and her light skin and light eyes give her an advantage. Her mother is her biggest advocate and puts away money quitely to save up for her schooling. 

Much of this story takes place around the time when Barbados was moving towards independence and Susan gets involved with a man name Winslow after taking a secretary job. She's acts like what we'd call in 2020 a pick-me.  She plays housekeeper cleaning and cooking for his business meetings. She and his assistant who he also sleeps with engage in petty games for his affections.  She's so sprung off the sex she throws self esteem out the window. And then she convinces herself she will become first lady by playing the role of wife for him. So many times I wanted to slap her but I had to remember the role women had during that time and how some women still are today. 

I do wish we would've gotten a little more into Lia's life in Barbados. We did receive her POV but it was in relation to Susan mainly. I wanted to know more about who Lia was and what she went through and how it compared to Susan's life. There was a twist interesting twist included which I did end up guessing but still left me satisfied.

It's a slow starter but once you get into this story it really captures you. It touches on poverty, race, class, mental illness and colorism in Barbados during that 60s.