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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
Told in alternating voices...this novel follows the post civil war story of Hannie (a freed slave) who disguises herself as a boy in order to secretly drive her 16 year old mistress, Missy Lavinia and Missy's Creole half sister, Juneau Jane on a quest to find information about the their father who is missing and possibly dead. Their journey takes them from Louisiana to the wilds of Texas in search of family and along the way they collect the stories of "lost friends" in an effort to help others find their families.
That storyline alternates with the experience of Benny Silva, a young English teacher, in 1987 who is trying to bring stories to life for her disengaged students.
Well done although I disliked the final part of Benny's story and felt it was forced.
That storyline alternates with the experience of Benny Silva, a young English teacher, in 1987 who is trying to bring stories to life for her disengaged students.
Well done although I disliked the final part of Benny's story and felt it was forced.
What was hard for me was that I really enjoyed one story over the other. I actually enjoyed both stories but one was just so much more captivating and that fact took away from the book as a whole. Also, there was a twist at the end that felt unnecessary and as though it just didn’t fit.
Wingate has taken a tragic part of American history and demonstrated how knowledge of the past ties to the present. I think this would be a great read for high school students everywhere to increase their awareness of the lives of slaves in the South before the emancipation proclamation and how those circumstances carry forward to continue to impact the African American community today.
Hannie Gossett is a young black woman living in Louisiana 1875. She is the only one of her kin to remain at Goswood Grove, where she is a house servant. Her only link to mama her relatives are the three small blue beads she wears around her neck. Each of her siblings and mother also have such an accoutrement. She cared for Miss Lavinia, a daughter of the master when she was younger. Unbeknownst to many, the master also has another daughter, Juneau Jane to a creole woman. Now, with the master away, his fate uncertain, rivals Miss Lavinia and Juneau Jane leave Goswood Grove to search for him and important papers indicating their inheritance that he may have with him. Hannie is also interested in such documents as she believes she is close to owning a home and some land through the sharecropping efforts of herself others whom she has been living with. So, when the two young women sneak off together seeking answers, it is Hannie, disguised as a driver boy who escorts them on their journey. Although they do not know it at the time, she will be the one to watch over the other two and use every ounce of strength and wit she has to enable them to find William P. Gossett. When she learns of the “Lost Friends” columns she is more determined than ever to find her missing kindred.
1987 - Bennie Silva is new in town, and a recent hire in the English department at the high school in Augustine, Louisiana. She is renting a small house owned by Nathan Gossett. Curiosity brings her to discover a wealth of books and other written treasures in the nearby Gossett family home. Her desire to reach her students and inspire them are realized when she injects a bit of local history into her lessons.
The Southwestern, a newspaper published in New Orleans in the later part of the nineteenth century, regularly ran inquiries for individuals looking for lost family members who had been separated at auction or through other cruelties of slavery. These advertisements were titled with the heading “Lost Friends”.
Hannie Gossett is a young black woman living in Louisiana 1875. She is the only one of her kin to remain at Goswood Grove, where she is a house servant. Her only link to mama her relatives are the three small blue beads she wears around her neck. Each of her siblings and mother also have such an accoutrement. She cared for Miss Lavinia, a daughter of the master when she was younger. Unbeknownst to many, the master also has another daughter, Juneau Jane to a creole woman. Now, with the master away, his fate uncertain, rivals Miss Lavinia and Juneau Jane leave Goswood Grove to search for him and important papers indicating their inheritance that he may have with him. Hannie is also interested in such documents as she believes she is close to owning a home and some land through the sharecropping efforts of herself others whom she has been living with. So, when the two young women sneak off together seeking answers, it is Hannie, disguised as a driver boy who escorts them on their journey. Although they do not know it at the time, she will be the one to watch over the other two and use every ounce of strength and wit she has to enable them to find William P. Gossett. When she learns of the “Lost Friends” columns she is more determined than ever to find her missing kindred.
1987 - Bennie Silva is new in town, and a recent hire in the English department at the high school in Augustine, Louisiana. She is renting a small house owned by Nathan Gossett. Curiosity brings her to discover a wealth of books and other written treasures in the nearby Gossett family home. Her desire to reach her students and inspire them are realized when she injects a bit of local history into her lessons.
The Southwestern, a newspaper published in New Orleans in the later part of the nineteenth century, regularly ran inquiries for individuals looking for lost family members who had been separated at auction or through other cruelties of slavery. These advertisements were titled with the heading “Lost Friends”.
One of my favorite shows is Finding Your Roots.... and this book really encapsulates the hope of being able to tell the story of our ancestors. I had never heard of the Book of Lost Friends, which was a 19th century advertisement of people looking to find their lost relatives- of course it would make for a great backdrop for a fictional story. I also have an affinity for two stories in two different time periods that intertwine.
This is two stories in one. One is about Hannie who was a slave from the south and her hunt for her siblings. The second story is about Benny who is a first year English teacher in a poor district Georgia. She is having problems with class discipline until one of the ladies in town steps in to help her. The reason I didn't give it all 5 stars is I felt this one was slow in spots.
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I 100% enjoyed this book. Loved the story, the characters and the connection to real life historical events.
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It took me awhile to even sort of enjoy this book. I think skipping between time periods/main characters took me out of the story and in past time period none of the characters are likable. Thinking back, I somewhat enjoyed the middle of the book, but didn’t like the beginning or ending which are arguably the most important parts of a book. Eventually, the book just turned into a cloying ad for a family history company (cough Ancestry cough) and that is not a compliment.
The past plot was annoying. As I mentioned, the 3 main characters in the past are not likable at all. They also often dress up as boys and it seems that people believe it, but this happened way too often to be interesting or believable.
In the present story, there’s a little bit of humor, likable characters, a more interesting story, and a woman starting to realize how life is different for these kids. But then the main character in the present judges a teen romance heavily, she even mentions it disapprovingly several times. I would also like to point out that while the class project is lovely, it has nothing to do with English class. It is purely genealogy. In fact, it might have been better for the MC to be a history teacher instead of an English teacher. The author, like many others, tries to laud books and libraries—using ‘bibliophile’ as a normal word for the characters—but it truly has nothing to do with the story.
There are romance plot lines with the main characters that are really shoehorned in. It’s unnecessary and distracting.
The ending especially is an ad for Ancestry. You know those ads that they had to really search to find with a tear jerking story of how genealogy changed their lives? That was the ending. And while appreciate that knowing history is important, and knowing your family, it is not that deep and at some point you get so far back that it becomes meaningless. There’s also a secret the present MC is holding on to that’s revealed at the end and it was saccharine and only there is further the genealogy cause, it didn’t matter to the story at all.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Rape
Minor: Confinement
I really wanted to like this book more. I feel like all of the elements were there: strong, likeable characters, well-researched history, descriptive prose, but yet, it didn't all come together as something that was a fluid, enjoyable, read. The author would end scenes with a cliff hanger, but then jump in time without explaining what happened the moments after these scenes, so they were all explained as past events, losing a lot of their lustre. Sometimes I'd want her to slow down to describe these transformative scenes, and other times I'd want her to speed up as her writing was overly descriptive and I felt like I was hacking my way through a densely grown trail, trying to follow her train of thought and getting bored. Often I lost track of who was who. To be honest, getting through the last 1/3rd of the book was a bit of a struggle, and the twist at the end seemed totally random and forced. I'm still giving the book 3 stars. I think her previous book, Before We Were Yours, was much better.