Sunday, September 11, 2022

Book Review: Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Before We Were Yours is not only a gripping book from page one, it is also one of those profound, thought-provoking books that made me check with Mr Google if the events mentioned were true the moment I finished it. The narrative was so detailed and complicated that it couldn't have been born out of an author's imagination. It was too real. And it turned out that my instinct was right. 

While the book is a fictional work, it was based on the notorious scandals that involved the Tennessee Children's Home Society operated by Georgia Tann. 

On the surface the Tennessee Children's Home Society is an orphanage, but in reality it was an organization that kidnapped children from their homes to be placed for adoption by wealthy and powerful families. Newborn babies were also stolen from their mothers in the hospitals. The mothers would be told their babies were dead. Blond and blue-eyed children were targeted as they were in demand. (Google up both Tennessee Children's Home Society and Geogia Tann to read more about the true events.)

The story in the book is told from two timelines, one as a flashback to 1939, from the viewpoint of Rill Foster who was snatched from her shanty boat home together with her four siblings when she was twelve years old. The other is in the present day, told from the point of view of Avery Stafford, the daughter of a prominent Senator who visited a nursing home and was mistaken for someone else by a resident there.

The two timelines merged towards the end of the book as Avery dug into the past of her family.

Although Avery Stafford was the central character, the voice of Rill Foster was more compelling, and the events more poignant. One has to be made of rock not to be moved by the events that Rill and her siblings had to go through. 

That said, it is a book with a satisfactory ending, not one that left you weeping buckets of tears (I hate those).