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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
slow-paced
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I’m not a big historical fiction kind of person. I like to read from different genres throughout the year. It has a good story line. I just struggled finding the book interesting. Not to have one kissing part in the whole book not even a husband and wife. The closest we got to affection was a hug.
Fantastic! 2 timelines blended in the end, teacher perspective, Henny’s story of on the run is incredible and exciting. The audiobook was perfection w accents and changing voices, Book of Lost Friends taken from real letters
This book was a bit disappointing. I really enjoyed the parts about the high school kids in 1987, but Hannie’s story in 1875 was just ok. Her story wrapped up with too perfect a bow with a lot of convenient coincidences. There were a lot of names to keep up with and relations to connect from past to present. It didn’t hit its emotional mark the way it could have. Benny from 1987 was carrying a huge secret we don’t find out about until the very last paragraph and I was left with so many questions. To be honest, I found it a little weird that a white woman was writing in a voice of a slave woman. It felt a little inauthentic. In all, the story wasn’t bad. I found it interesting, but not my favorite.
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This historical fiction offers the dual perspectives of a recently freed enslaved woman and a teacher who ends up in the same small town almost 100 years later. This book was a little slow to get into, but I was interested enough to see what became of Hannie to carry on. The author had a tendency to end a chapter on a bit of a cliff hanger before switching narrators. Then, when we returned to the former narrator, she had advanced the story, then backtracked. In a book that, while interesting, was a bit of a slower read, and especially when read on a kindle where I couldn’t easily physically flip back to remember what had happened, it frustrated me. I also found the opposition our 1980s teacher encounters to be contrived and under developed. The inclusion of the actual classified ads for “lost friends” was sobering and deeply felt.
I found myself skimming which I almost never do. There were just way too many words, especially for the present day story. I loved Before we Were Yours though so it's too bad I wasn't a huge fan of this one.
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in early March.
A fictional story based on real-life newspaper articles of people trying to reconnect their families together after slavery pulled them apart. The story loosely fills the gaps with assumed memories and flashbacks, i.e. two people in the mid-1980s; one coming across documents that bring to light the other’s lineage. In all, it'd be better as a made for TV movie.
A fictional story based on real-life newspaper articles of people trying to reconnect their families together after slavery pulled them apart. The story loosely fills the gaps with assumed memories and flashbacks, i.e. two people in the mid-1980s; one coming across documents that bring to light the other’s lineage. In all, it'd be better as a made for TV movie.
adventurous
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated