Soft Like Steel

Given To Me For An Honest Review

Soft Like Steel by Barb Malek is a must read.  It is a short quick read and is the debut novel for Barb Malek.  This book will grab you from pagone, it will hold you down, you will watch the pages turn themselves and turn and turn and turn again until you get to the end.  You will try and put it down but it won't let you.  After the author's grandmother died, her journal was found by family members.  It was this journal which inspired Barb Malek to write this book.  Using this journal and family interviews this book tells the story of Barbara Kennel, her marriage, her husband and her children.  There is historical context also included to correspond to the family's life .... their surviving the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression and WWII.  It is a beautiful story of a journey of hope, love and joy.  You will read a legacy that has been passed on to a family to carry on.  As you are reading this book, you will feel the book drawing you in and you become a part of the book.  This is a great book to read and to own.  I loved it.  I gave this book 5 stars but it truly deserves many, many more.  I highly recommend it to everyone.  For being a debut novel Barb Malek has hit it out of the ballpark with this one.  I hope to see more from her soon.

Barbara Kennel is a young woman who gets married and becomes pregnant. She is overjoyed to finally have the life she has always wanted. Sadly, things don't turn out as she had hoped and she faces many obstacles and heartbreak during her life. This was a fascinating look at a woman who endured her husband's infidelity and the loss of a child. She lived through The Dust Bowl and The Great Depression. She had a fierce determination and strength that I admired. Malek has done a wonderful job of sharing her grandmother  with the reader. This was a book about devotion, perseverance and resilience. Thank you, Netgalley.

Soft Like Steel is wonderful peek into the past at the life of a woman who overcame incredible odds to survive and successfully rear her children in a time when women were not expected to be able to do so.  This reads like a family memoir with the characters portrayed as familiar and comfortable.

Excellent work on the story about a young wife and mother during The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl eras and the many struggles that befall her. The title says it all about this mother. A true "hard to put down" book.  I highly recomnend it