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A review by callienicole
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
5.0
Wow, this book was a difficult story to read, but so good!
This book starts with Avery Stafford returning home to help her ill father, who is also a senator, as she is being prepared to potentially take his place. At an press event at a nursing home, she runs into an older women who has a picture that looks suspiciously like Avery's grandmother. She investigates, of course. In alternating chapters we also read the story of 12 year old Rill and she and her four siblings are in essence kidnapped from their home and put into an orphanage, to be adopted out to new families.
This story is based on real-life events in Memphis Tennessee between 1930-1950, when kids were taken from their poor families and adopted out to rich families for exorbitant fees. Families lost their children unjustly, and the adoptive families had no idea.
This story was obviously a bit difficult for me to read as a mom to five kids of my own. Rill and her siblings endure neglect and abuse in the orphanage while being separated from their families, who have no idea what happened to them.
I loved the way Wingate alternated the story lines and tied everything in. I saw part of the ending coming, but it was still immensely satisfying. This story does not end perfectly happy, and some of the sad parts still haunt me, but to me, it felt like the ending fit the story just right. Even thought it dealt with some very difficult and heartbreaking subjects, like physical and sexual abuse, it was pretty clean. I definitely recommend it, I couldn't put it down.
This book starts with Avery Stafford returning home to help her ill father, who is also a senator, as she is being prepared to potentially take his place. At an press event at a nursing home, she runs into an older women who has a picture that looks suspiciously like Avery's grandmother. She investigates, of course. In alternating chapters we also read the story of 12 year old Rill and she and her four siblings are in essence kidnapped from their home and put into an orphanage, to be adopted out to new families.
This story is based on real-life events in Memphis Tennessee between 1930-1950, when kids were taken from their poor families and adopted out to rich families for exorbitant fees. Families lost their children unjustly, and the adoptive families had no idea.
This story was obviously a bit difficult for me to read as a mom to five kids of my own. Rill and her siblings endure neglect and abuse in the orphanage while being separated from their families, who have no idea what happened to them.
I loved the way Wingate alternated the story lines and tied everything in. I saw part of the ending coming, but it was still immensely satisfying. This story does not end perfectly happy, and some of the sad parts still haunt me, but to me, it felt like the ending fit the story just right. Even thought it dealt with some very difficult and heartbreaking subjects, like physical and sexual abuse, it was pretty clean. I definitely recommend it, I couldn't put it down.