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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
I'd give this book 3.75 stars! This would be a 4/5 stars but there were a few components the author through in I didn't think were needed or made sense for the story as a whole. Overall the book was beautiful, all child with down syndrome are such special creations from the Lord<3
adventurous
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Yes
It’s 1969 and Ginny Richardson goes into labor with her second child at the baby shower hosted by her mother-in-law. After a hazy delivery, she’s informed that her baby daughter, Lucy, has serious health issues and has Down syndrome. Still in a fog aided by sedatives heaped upon her, husband Ab convinces her that the child needs to be institutionalized and isn’t expected to live very long. Ginny only has a few moments with her daughter before she’s taken. Two years later, her best friend, Marsha, shows her a newspaper exposé on Lucy’s institution that is cause for high alarm. It sets Ginny on a path and journey not only to rescue her daughter but awaken herself from an unfulfilled life.
Though the story begins with Lucy’s birth, it transitions throughout to Ginny’s life before she married Ab Richardson and thereafter. She’s from a humble background in Amherst, Massachusetts and he’s from a family of privilege in Dover. It helps explain Ginny’s seeming passivity about Lucy’s separation at the time of her birth and Ab’s transformation from an idealist to the stereotypical corporate lawyer in almost total submission to his father’s will. The timing of each change coincided with Ginny’s gradual emergence from complete dependency to more control of her life. Lucy’s story was beyond heartbreaking but she was a symbol for so much more, offering Ginny a lifeline back to who she once was before her father-in-law manipulated her and his son into an unfulfilling life path.
I also loved Ginny’s friend, Marsha, who embraced life with gusto and helped provide a glimpse into a Ginny of the past. It was interesting to see how their relationship shifted as Ginny gained strength and Marsha’s vulnerabilities were unmasked. There was no power change, just a coming together of equals. It was easier to embrace Ginny’s transformation because of this relationship...you knew Marsha wouldn’t have been friends with who she had become.
This is a complex story that could lead you to distraction because of Ginny’s decision to remove her daughter from the institute and embark on a road trip to save her. It is equally about how someone can find themself adrift when they don’t follow her or his own heart. Ginny and Ab had such promise as a couple and it was painful to see their descent into a life that didn’t make either of them happy. I also loved how Lucy was presented, not just as a Down syndrome child but as a person in her beauty with all her limitations and strengths. She helped Ginny regain herself and independence, throwing a lifeline to her husband in the meantime. It’s a lovely story in the midst of some real ugliness.
Posted on Blue Mood Café
(Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.)
Though the story begins with Lucy’s birth, it transitions throughout to Ginny’s life before she married Ab Richardson and thereafter. She’s from a humble background in Amherst, Massachusetts and he’s from a family of privilege in Dover. It helps explain Ginny’s seeming passivity about Lucy’s separation at the time of her birth and Ab’s transformation from an idealist to the stereotypical corporate lawyer in almost total submission to his father’s will. The timing of each change coincided with Ginny’s gradual emergence from complete dependency to more control of her life. Lucy’s story was beyond heartbreaking but she was a symbol for so much more, offering Ginny a lifeline back to who she once was before her father-in-law manipulated her and his son into an unfulfilling life path.
I also loved Ginny’s friend, Marsha, who embraced life with gusto and helped provide a glimpse into a Ginny of the past. It was interesting to see how their relationship shifted as Ginny gained strength and Marsha’s vulnerabilities were unmasked. There was no power change, just a coming together of equals. It was easier to embrace Ginny’s transformation because of this relationship...you knew Marsha wouldn’t have been friends with who she had become.
This is a complex story that could lead you to distraction because of Ginny’s decision to remove her daughter from the institute and embark on a road trip to save her. It is equally about how someone can find themself adrift when they don’t follow her or his own heart. Ginny and Ab had such promise as a couple and it was painful to see their descent into a life that didn’t make either of them happy. I also loved how Lucy was presented, not just as a Down syndrome child but as a person in her beauty with all her limitations and strengths. She helped Ginny regain herself and independence, throwing a lifeline to her husband in the meantime. It’s a lovely story in the midst of some real ugliness.
Posted on Blue Mood Café
(Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.)
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Torture, Kidnapping, Classism
Minor: Fatphobia, Trafficking, Lesbophobia, Alcohol
My first read of 2019 did NOT disappoint! Keeping Lucy takes you back to 1969, when Ginny Richardson gives birth to a sweet daughter named Lucy. The trouble is that Lucy was born with Down Syndrome and has a high risk for heart problems. While Ginny is recovering from giving birth, Lucy is taken from her and sent away to a special school by her husband and powerful father-in-law. Ginny wakes up and when asks for her baby she is told to grieve Lucy like she is already dead.
Is your heart breaking yet? It gets worse when two years later, Ginny’s best friend calls her about a series of articles calling the school that Lucy was send to a “hell-on-earth.” That’s when Ginny takes matters into her own hands and does anything that she can to give her daughter a better life.
I started and finished it on New Year’s Day, I just couldn’t put it down. This book isn’t expected to publish until August 6 but this book NEEDS to be on your TBR list!
Thanks to St Martin's Press and GoodReads for my ARC to read and review!
Is your heart breaking yet? It gets worse when two years later, Ginny’s best friend calls her about a series of articles calling the school that Lucy was send to a “hell-on-earth.” That’s when Ginny takes matters into her own hands and does anything that she can to give her daughter a better life.
I started and finished it on New Year’s Day, I just couldn’t put it down. This book isn’t expected to publish until August 6 but this book NEEDS to be on your TBR list!
Thanks to St Martin's Press and GoodReads for my ARC to read and review!
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I'm a little on the fence of how to rate this book. I read Rust & Stardust last year and really liked it, so I was excited to receive a copy of T. Greenwood's newest book, Keeping Lucy, in hopes of learning more about a period of history I didn't know much about. I did like this book and I did learn something, but I didn't like it quite as much as Rust & Stardust because I felt it lacked in plot.
Finding Lucy is about a family from Massachusetts in the 1970's whose second child is born with down synodrome. Down syndrome has a sad history in the United States and the delivery doctor strongly recommended enrolling the baby, Lucy, in an institution that could better see to her needs. Her mother, Ginny, was excluded from the decision to give up the baby and years later, she struggles with the loss of her little girl. When Lucy is two years old, a journalist publishes an expose about Willowridge, Lucy's school, that reveals the deplorable living conditions in which the children are kept. Ginny is horrified and upset by the article and travels to Willowridge for the first time to see the conditions for herself and meet her daughter.
Greenwood definitely has a unique style of writing. It is very simple and straight forward, but does an excellent job of making you feel acutely uncomfortable and anxious. Rust & Stardust was about the kidnapping of Sally Horner, the young girl who inspired Lolita, and made me feel so anxious and frustrated about the way Sally was manipulated and treated. I had a similar reaction to Keeping Lucy in that I found this part of history shocking, I was frustrated by the way the health and justice system worked in the 1970's, particularly in how it ignores the agency of women, and I was so anxious about the decisions the characters made and the potential ramifications. I flew through the book, reading about 75% of it on a lazy saturday.
I liked that this looked at a disturbing and lesser known part of history, but unfortunately I was a little disappointed in the execution. I was expecting this book to focus on Willowridge, the poor living conditions, the pursuit of justice against the institution, and the fight for custody of the children and for people with Down Syndrome to be recognized as people with a full set of rights. Willowridge is not a real place, but I trust it was imagined based on other similar institutions. Likewise, Ginny is not a real person, but I imagine there are parents out there who unknowningly were advised to send their babies off to similar institutions. In Ginny's case, she was more or less blindsided by her husband and father-in-law, which plays a large role in the story.
I liked Ginny's story arc in that it highlights how little agency women had in their lives and relationships. But overall I felt the author missed an opportunity to write a more historically meaningful plot. In order for the babies to be committed to the institution, parents essentially gave up their custody rights to the state. Once the story got going, I was expecting for this to be a story about Ginny's battle with the state to save her daughter and regain custody while fighting against the antiquanted and sexist beliefs of her father in law, who thought he was entitled to make decisions for his son and family. The story provided a great look at how the patriarchy robbed women of any power or agency and the gender dynamics that often existed in families at this time. But ultimately this story was not about a custody battle, but rather was a drawn out road trip in which Ginny tries to escape with her daughter and the trials she faces as a single woman/mother in rural America. It was an interesting story with a surprising amount of action, but meaningless in that while I understood Ginny's desperation, her actions were drastic and not realistic. I know Ginny was only try to save her daughter from being returned to Willowridge, but her actions were short sighted and actually really harmful to the result that she wanted. She's applauded at the end for her good motherly instincts, which I thought pretty rich because she basically just ran away from any responsibility.
Ginny and Martha made a lot of bad decisions that I felt there was really no coming back from. I disliked the ending because I thought it was extremely unlikely and absolved Ginny of any wrongdoing. What I really wanted to hear about was the struggle all those other families went through in gaining custody of their children and what legal actions were taken against the institutions for their neglect. People with Down Syndrome had to fight for their legal rights, care, and education, and I would have much preferred to learn more about that.
The story did hold my interest throughout the whole book and I sped through it, but the longer GInny and Martha spent on the road, the more I wondered what the whole point was. I didn't expect them to be on the run for so long and I was really surprised when it ended up being the main plotline of the story. This is a fascinating part of history and I really just wish we had gotten a different story. I won't fault the author because she did still deliver on a fast paced and interesting story, but personally, it just wasn't the story I was hoping for and I thought it was a bit of a missed opportunity. I'm still giving it 3 stars because I did learn something and I thought the writing was pretty good, but overall it just left me wanting more.
I'm a little on the fence of how to rate this book. I read Rust & Stardust last year and really liked it, so I was excited to receive a copy of T. Greenwood's newest book, Keeping Lucy, in hopes of learning more about a period of history I didn't know much about. I did like this book and I did learn something, but I didn't like it quite as much as Rust & Stardust because I felt it lacked in plot.
Finding Lucy is about a family from Massachusetts in the 1970's whose second child is born with down synodrome. Down syndrome has a sad history in the United States and the delivery doctor strongly recommended enrolling the baby, Lucy, in an institution that could better see to her needs. Her mother, Ginny, was excluded from the decision to give up the baby and years later, she struggles with the loss of her little girl. When Lucy is two years old, a journalist publishes an expose about Willowridge, Lucy's school, that reveals the deplorable living conditions in which the children are kept. Ginny is horrified and upset by the article and travels to Willowridge for the first time to see the conditions for herself and meet her daughter.
Greenwood definitely has a unique style of writing. It is very simple and straight forward, but does an excellent job of making you feel acutely uncomfortable and anxious. Rust & Stardust was about the kidnapping of Sally Horner, the young girl who inspired Lolita, and made me feel so anxious and frustrated about the way Sally was manipulated and treated. I had a similar reaction to Keeping Lucy in that I found this part of history shocking, I was frustrated by the way the health and justice system worked in the 1970's, particularly in how it ignores the agency of women, and I was so anxious about the decisions the characters made and the potential ramifications. I flew through the book, reading about 75% of it on a lazy saturday.
I liked that this looked at a disturbing and lesser known part of history, but unfortunately I was a little disappointed in the execution. I was expecting this book to focus on Willowridge, the poor living conditions, the pursuit of justice against the institution, and the fight for custody of the children and for people with Down Syndrome to be recognized as people with a full set of rights. Willowridge is not a real place, but I trust it was imagined based on other similar institutions. Likewise, Ginny is not a real person, but I imagine there are parents out there who unknowningly were advised to send their babies off to similar institutions. In Ginny's case, she was more or less blindsided by her husband and father-in-law, which plays a large role in the story.
I liked Ginny's story arc in that it highlights how little agency women had in their lives and relationships. But overall I felt the author missed an opportunity to write a more historically meaningful plot. In order for the babies to be committed to the institution, parents essentially gave up their custody rights to the state. Once the story got going, I was expecting for this to be a story about Ginny's battle with the state to save her daughter and regain custody while fighting against the antiquanted and sexist beliefs of her father in law, who thought he was entitled to make decisions for his son and family. The story provided a great look at how the patriarchy robbed women of any power or agency and the gender dynamics that often existed in families at this time. But ultimately this story was not about a custody battle, but rather was a drawn out road trip in which Ginny tries to escape with her daughter and the trials she faces as a single woman/mother in rural America. It was an interesting story with a surprising amount of action, but meaningless in that while I understood Ginny's desperation, her actions were drastic and not realistic. I know Ginny was only try to save her daughter from being returned to Willowridge, but her actions were short sighted and actually really harmful to the result that she wanted. She's applauded at the end for her good motherly instincts, which I thought pretty rich because she basically just ran away from any responsibility.
Ginny and Martha made a lot of bad decisions that I felt there was really no coming back from. I disliked the ending because I thought it was extremely unlikely and absolved Ginny of any wrongdoing.
Spoiler
I'm referring to the police officer that basically covered up all the crimes that her and Martha committed. The whole forcing her father-in-law to get her custody again was more believable, but too convenient.The story did hold my interest throughout the whole book and I sped through it, but the longer GInny and Martha spent on the road, the more I wondered what the whole point was. I didn't expect them to be on the run for so long and I was really surprised when it ended up being the main plotline of the story. This is a fascinating part of history and I really just wish we had gotten a different story. I won't fault the author because she did still deliver on a fast paced and interesting story, but personally, it just wasn't the story I was hoping for and I thought it was a bit of a missed opportunity. I'm still giving it 3 stars because I did learn something and I thought the writing was pretty good, but overall it just left me wanting more.
T. Greenwood where have you been hiding your twisted novels from me! I am one of those crazy people that appreciate books about life and not the romanticized version. What I loved about this book was how it pointed out the injustice towards women and the disabled. I’ve never read a book that pointed out ableism. Getting to view the world through the perspective of a woman with a child that has Down syndrome is eye opening. I loved the growth in her connection with her daughter and how Peyton grew to love her as well. As for characters, I loved Marsha. I loved how she stuck with her friend and was just there for her relentlessly. I will definitely be reading more of her books.
Author T. Greenwood sets the story in 1971. The Women's Movement is gaining steam, but it is still a time when women lacked power and autonomy. For instance, a woman could not yet have a credit card issued in her name and many professions were still hostile to women. Two years earlier, when Ginny and Ab's daughter was born, Ginny only held her child only briefly before she was whisked away. Ironically, Ginny's father died when she was only ten years old and she was raised thereafter by her single, working mother. Yet when Ginny met Ab in college and the two of them bonded over their shared love of poetry, both Ginny and Ab allowed their future to be commandeered by Ab's overbearing father. Ab abandons his plans, acceding to his father's demand that he attend law school and, upon graduation, join his father's firm. The elder Richardson supplies the financing for the young couple's home, and Ginny leaves her job at the college library behind in favor of raising their son, Peyton, and spending her days ironing Ab's shirts, preparing meals, and trying to keep her husband and in-laws happy, an impossible goal because of their disapproval of her. Ginny is barely an active participant in her own life, even though she loves her husband and child.
Ab does not challenge his father, who insists that Lucy be placed in Willowridge and makes all of the arrangements by calling in a favor. Ginny does not fight for her child, instead going along as Ab tries to console her by promising that Lucy will be well cared for. They engage in a charade, letting all but their closest family members and friends believe that the child died. As time passes, Ab puts Ginny off when she suggests that they, at last, visit Lucy at Willowridge. But Ginny never forgets her daughter.
When Ginny's best friend, Marsha, draws her attention to a series of newspaper articles exposing the abhorrent conditions at Willowridge and Ginny learns that a group of parents are filing a class action lawsuit, she comes alive. She defies Ab and enlists Marsha help. Ginny has never even learned to drive, another aspect of her complicity in her own helplessness. The two of them proceed to Willowridge where Ginny manages to check Lucy out of the institution for a weekend visit and begins to get acquainted with her now two-year-old child. Discovering that Lucy has been a victim of neglect at Willowridge finally enrages Ginny and spurs her to action. But she soon discovers that she is powerless -- she has no standing to make decisions about Lucy's future. Nonetheless, she and Marsha embark on a dangerous "Thelma and Louise"-type journey. Ginny is determined that she will find a way to keep Lucy and raise her -- as she should have in the first place.
Greenwood accurately portrays a different, not all that long-ago era in America when persons with disabilities were viewed as less than. As Ginny and Marsha travel through several states, Greenwood reveals with heartbreaking clarity how Lucy has suffered from neglect and how discovering the truth transforms Ginny. Marsha, Ginny's polar opposite, is as fascinating a character -- a woman who has done all the things and taken all the risks Ginny, cocooned in her predictable and secure life, never has. But she too is at a turning point in her life and must make a decision, even as the two women continue working their way to Florida where, they hope, their plan will come to fruition and prevent Ginny from being arrested and prosecuted. As the story progresses, Greenwood credibly portrays the strong bond between the two women, as well as Ginny's gradual empowerment and increasing appreciation of and reliance upon her own ingenuity and resourcefulness. Keeping Lucy is, in a very real sense, a coming of age tale. The pace of Keeping Lucy is relentless and Greenwood's holds her reader's interest by placing Ginny and Marsha in a series of predicaments that test their strength and luck.
Ab is indisputably the most maddening character, but Greenwood tells the story of how he and Ginny met, fell in love, and married through a series of flashbacks interspersed with the narrative set in 1971. Ultimately, although Ab is not the focus of Greenwood's tale, she describes in plausible detail how Ab became so eager to please his domineering father, and how his circumstances fueled his choices and what Ginny perceives as serious betrayals of her and their children.
Keeping Lucy is an interesting look back at the way things used to be in the United States that will prove eye-opening for readers who are too young to recall those times, and remind those who do remember just how much has been achieved in terms of women's rights, social justice, and the way, as a society, we perceive and care for those with special needs and abilities. It is a thoroughly engrossing tale about motherhood, female friendships and, through her examination of Ginny's metamorphosis, confirmation that it is never too late to stand up, be counted, and do the right thing. Especially for one's own child.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Ab does not challenge his father, who insists that Lucy be placed in Willowridge and makes all of the arrangements by calling in a favor. Ginny does not fight for her child, instead going along as Ab tries to console her by promising that Lucy will be well cared for. They engage in a charade, letting all but their closest family members and friends believe that the child died. As time passes, Ab puts Ginny off when she suggests that they, at last, visit Lucy at Willowridge. But Ginny never forgets her daughter.
When Ginny's best friend, Marsha, draws her attention to a series of newspaper articles exposing the abhorrent conditions at Willowridge and Ginny learns that a group of parents are filing a class action lawsuit, she comes alive. She defies Ab and enlists Marsha help. Ginny has never even learned to drive, another aspect of her complicity in her own helplessness. The two of them proceed to Willowridge where Ginny manages to check Lucy out of the institution for a weekend visit and begins to get acquainted with her now two-year-old child. Discovering that Lucy has been a victim of neglect at Willowridge finally enrages Ginny and spurs her to action. But she soon discovers that she is powerless -- she has no standing to make decisions about Lucy's future. Nonetheless, she and Marsha embark on a dangerous "Thelma and Louise"-type journey. Ginny is determined that she will find a way to keep Lucy and raise her -- as she should have in the first place.
Greenwood accurately portrays a different, not all that long-ago era in America when persons with disabilities were viewed as less than. As Ginny and Marsha travel through several states, Greenwood reveals with heartbreaking clarity how Lucy has suffered from neglect and how discovering the truth transforms Ginny. Marsha, Ginny's polar opposite, is as fascinating a character -- a woman who has done all the things and taken all the risks Ginny, cocooned in her predictable and secure life, never has. But she too is at a turning point in her life and must make a decision, even as the two women continue working their way to Florida where, they hope, their plan will come to fruition and prevent Ginny from being arrested and prosecuted. As the story progresses, Greenwood credibly portrays the strong bond between the two women, as well as Ginny's gradual empowerment and increasing appreciation of and reliance upon her own ingenuity and resourcefulness. Keeping Lucy is, in a very real sense, a coming of age tale. The pace of Keeping Lucy is relentless and Greenwood's holds her reader's interest by placing Ginny and Marsha in a series of predicaments that test their strength and luck.
Ab is indisputably the most maddening character, but Greenwood tells the story of how he and Ginny met, fell in love, and married through a series of flashbacks interspersed with the narrative set in 1971. Ultimately, although Ab is not the focus of Greenwood's tale, she describes in plausible detail how Ab became so eager to please his domineering father, and how his circumstances fueled his choices and what Ginny perceives as serious betrayals of her and their children.
Keeping Lucy is an interesting look back at the way things used to be in the United States that will prove eye-opening for readers who are too young to recall those times, and remind those who do remember just how much has been achieved in terms of women's rights, social justice, and the way, as a society, we perceive and care for those with special needs and abilities. It is a thoroughly engrossing tale about motherhood, female friendships and, through her examination of Ginny's metamorphosis, confirmation that it is never too late to stand up, be counted, and do the right thing. Especially for one's own child.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No