A review by joykirr
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

4.0

Alternating narrators (a young freed slave-turned-sharecropper in 1875 & a teacher in 1987) and myriad names kept me from putting five stars on this one, but that’s all. I also wish it had been written by an author who has this history in their blood (and I could be wrong about this, for sure). I love how the characters felt like real people, and I loved the ties from the past to the present. (I also loved the tiny bits of humor, like when Hannie sees Gus outside the jail and he says, “Gus McKlatchy don’t go back on a promise. Not even to somebody who’s likely drowned and dead. But you ain’t dead now, so far’s the evidence would show at this present time…”) I’m so glad this book had tribulations AND triumph, and I hope more stories are not lost due to time or ignorance.