Before We Were Yours

Interesting discussion at book club about what people felt about this book. I think it basically came down to us liking Rill's story, and not being interested in Avery's story. Avery's story seemed like a typical sort of “chick-lit” type of book, and then perhaps some more research was done, and a bit of Rill's story was inserted into the book. Rill/May should have then taken over completely, instead of only part way. Think of it - would you rather have had some hints of Avery's (fairly boring) love life, or more about Rill and her 3 husbands?

3.5 As one of my Battle kids said, it starts sad and doesn't go up from there and she wasn't kidding! I liked but didn't love this. I think it will be interesting for kids who don't know much about the 1930s and predatory child adoption agencies (maybe that's most kids?). Readable and interesting, but there were a few lame/overused plot points.

Before We Were Yours

Although it's very slow in getting started (Hang in there! It's worth it!), this becomes a can't-put-it-down book that tells a heartbreaking tale based on historical facts. From the 1920s to 1950 in Tennessee, wealthy couples were able to adopt babies and children who had been taken from poor families–from trickery to outright kidnapping–in a scheme that essentially put those children up for sale. Even more tragically, while awaiting adoption, the children who were under the auspices of the Tennessee Children's Home Society were housed in horrific conditions, including being routinely fed bug-infested food, beaten and placed in solitary confinement, sexually abused and even murdered.

Written by Lisa Wingate, the book is structured as two stories in one, alternating chapter by chapter. The present day story focuses on Avery Stafford, an attorney and daughter of a U.S. senator from South Carolina, who is trying to uncover the secrets of her family that she traces back to the Tennessee Children's Home Society. The other part of the book takes place in 1939 during the Great Depression and focuses on Rill Foss, a child who lives with her parents and siblings on a shanty boat on the Mississippi River, and is terrifyingly kidnapped with her sisters and brother and sent to live at a notorious Memphis boarding facility that is part of the Tennessee Children's Home Society while awaiting adoption.

This novel is compelling and eventually becomes a real page-turner as it explores what it means to be a family, as well as the power of secrets–even those decades in the past–to unravel and hurt us or empower us and make us stronger. I think this is a must read for everyone who wants to learn something of the past. I do recommend that you take your time and give this a chance.

The saddest books always seem to be based on historical facts. This book was well written and it read like a mystery. There were several TW moments that I almost skimmed through. I feel like I'm in the minority, but I preferred reading from Avery's POV than Rill's/May's. Other than Avery's inner dialogue about how she's just not into her fiancé, the search and moments with Trent were good. Rill's/May's POV was hard for me. Adoption is a touchy subject. Many of the reasons people have for wanting children in general weirds me out. Children are not commodities or items to be purchased to boost status. Georgia Tann was a monster, yes, but she wasn't alone in the way she treated children. People are still trafficking children under the guise of adoption and fostering, but I digress... I loved Judy and May's sister days and that they were able to be together at the end. I liked that even though I was sad during a lot of this book, the intrigue and resolution didn't let the sadness cloud my overall feelings.

It was good enough to finish, but not much more than that. I did want to see how it wrapped up, but getting there was painful. The story is a fictionalized account of real events - in other words, the orphanage existed, but these particular orphans are not real themselves.

Enough other reviewers have shown quotes of some of the dialogue that is both unnatural and unbelievable - and not written in a way that people actually talk. Some dialogue is jarringly obvious to be intended as the voice of the omniscient narrator, and this really takes me out of the story personally.

So many works of fiction for reading and TV today explore the duality of seemingly “evil” characters - they are often no longer portrayed as evil antagonists simply for the sake of having a conflict. Instead we are given more opportunity to see why these people end up so, what makes them tick, what motivates them. And yeah, they often make good decisions along with their bad / amoral / unethical ones. But not these orphanage owners. Unfortunately the reader is given all the bad and none of the reasoning. Sure money is an obvious motivator, but there was not nearly enough exploration of how a person or persons decide to treat children like chattel solely for the purposes of making money. I would have loved more of an exploration of this. I suppose these were real people and in fact many died before being able to testify their motivations, reasoning, turning points, and the author chose not to guess.

The story was OK - the children's story was melodramatic, predictable, gut-wrenchingly sad to the point I felt manipulated. The “present” day story was just not good - mainly characters that did things for the purpose of telling the story the author wanted to tell, NOT characters with their own motivations and lives. And to me, that's an uninteresting, uninspiring way to tell a story.

** Edit ** Added later that I have given higher ratings to books both less believable and with worse dialogue. The trouble with this book is that it is so highly rated on Goodreads! And winner of Best Historical Fiction in 2017, which is why I'm so much more critical. This is not good historical fiction. **

Wow–since when have I given five stars to a bestseller? In this instance, the book's popularity is well placed. It's not an easy story to read, but it's so well-written and the characters so compelling that it helps with the extremely tragic subject matter. (Especially the Camellia part) Rill is a wonderful big sister and it was easy to identify with her heartbreak as she loses her family one by one. Avery is a modern young woman, trying to find her own destiny in the midst of her family's strictly perfect public life and the narrow confines she's expected to perform within.

Highly recommended.

Squeaky clean writing content, but heavy subject matter concerning child abuse. 18+