The Friday 56 (With Book Beginnings): Outrageous: The Victoria Woodhull Saga, Volume 1: Rise to Riches by Neal Katz + 50/50 Friday

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice.

These are the rules:

1. Grab a book, any book.

2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.
4. Post it.
5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader.  The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader.

This week I'm spotlighting a current read, Outrageous: The Victoria Woodhull Saga, Volume 1: Rise to Riches by Neal Katz which I'm about half way through at the moment.  This novel is a fictionalized account of Victoria Woodhull's life from her own perspective, plus it has a touch of magical realism.  Woodhull (1838-1927), if you're not already familiar with her, was the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1872 as the nominee for the newly formed Equal Rights Party (a major part of her platform included the idea of free love), a full 48 years before women had the right to vote.  She and her sister, Tennessee, were also the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street and were friends/ consultants of the railroad and shipping tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt.  Victoria was also the first woman to address a Congressional Committee.  Later in life, she and her third husband lived in England - there's even a memorial to her at Tewkesbury Abbey.  Unfortunately, she was excluded from Susan B. Anthony's and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's History of Woman Suffrage - originally they were allies, but in the end it seemed they thought she was going too far too fast and would hurt their cause.  That being said it's really cool that this larger-than-life woman who was far ahead of her own time is getting rediscovered now.  Plus, it's getting Homer, Ohio, Victoria's hometown - a village close to my heart - back on the map!

Beginning:

I hurt.

56:

"I'm sorry, Tennie.  It must be hard for you to hear about my freedom and the friends I made along the way.  I swear to you, I will take you a way from here.  I mean it."  I broke down crying.

This week I'm also taking part in a brand new linkup called 50/50 Friday, which is hosted by Carrie @ The Butterfly Reader and Laura @ Blue Eye Books.  Every week they'll have a new topic featuring two sides of the same coin - this week the topic is Character Most/ Least Likely to be a World Traveler.

Most:

Nix from The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig - She already is a world traveler!

Least:

Maddie from Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon - She's been confined to her home for her entire life due to SCID, so she travels via books and the internet.