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mahardy37 's review for:
The Book of Lost Friends
by Lisa Wingate
adventurous
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
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:
Complicated
Excellent book, listened to the audiobook version via Libby offered by my public library.
Wingate explores the lives of enslaved people after "The Freedom" with this story that had alternating chapters.
There is Hannie's story, 12 years after The Freedom. There was a general panic at the end of the Civil War amongst white slave owners. Many took their slaves to Texas to "refuge" until the war was over. Texas was a wild place where slavery was acceptable and the state was so far removed from the rest of the country. (One reason why it was over two years before they were freed in Texas after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation). Hannie's family was split up and sold in this migration (by a shifty nephew who was only supposed to be transporting them). Hannie communicates tonusbher desire to find her lost family and also the challenges as a share cropper to her old owners.
Another "voice" were listings placed in the late 1800s in newspapers by formally enslaved persons looking for family member - actual "Lost Friends" advertisements.
There is also Bennie Silva, a young woman struggling with personal issues and as a new teacher in a divided community in 1987. She trues to reach her students by getting them interested in their Ancestry and has them writing research papers on an ancestor. This project is not appreciated by the white ruling class in town.
These three separate POVs teach you a great deal about the time period after The Freedom while fractured families try to find each other. You also see the injustices of small southern communities that want to bury the past and keep poorer citizens in their place.
I really enjoyed this story in spite of some uneven character development and the last minute awkward and incomplete unveiling of Bennie's big secret at the end of the book.
Wingate explores the lives of enslaved people after "The Freedom" with this story that had alternating chapters.
There is Hannie's story, 12 years after The Freedom. There was a general panic at the end of the Civil War amongst white slave owners. Many took their slaves to Texas to "refuge" until the war was over. Texas was a wild place where slavery was acceptable and the state was so far removed from the rest of the country. (One reason why it was over two years before they were freed in Texas after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation). Hannie's family was split up and sold in this migration (by a shifty nephew who was only supposed to be transporting them). Hannie communicates tonusbher desire to find her lost family and also the challenges as a share cropper to her old owners.
Another "voice" were listings placed in the late 1800s in newspapers by formally enslaved persons looking for family member - actual "Lost Friends" advertisements.
There is also Bennie Silva, a young woman struggling with personal issues and as a new teacher in a divided community in 1987. She trues to reach her students by getting them interested in their Ancestry and has them writing research papers on an ancestor. This project is not appreciated by the white ruling class in town.
These three separate POVs teach you a great deal about the time period after The Freedom while fractured families try to find each other. You also see the injustices of small southern communities that want to bury the past and keep poorer citizens in their place.
I really enjoyed this story in spite of some uneven character development and the last minute awkward and incomplete unveiling of Bennie's big secret at the end of the book.