Before We Were Yours

Author: Lisa Wingate
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: 2017
Pages: 352
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.

Review: I hated this book. This did an emotional number on me, much like Sarah's Key did years ago. There are just some books this mom struggles to read. These poor children.

I had actually started this book last summer, but it didn't grab me so I set it aside. When it came up as the September book selection for my new online book club, I figured now was the time.

This is a story that needs to be told, should be told, but the detailed atrocities and heartache page after page after page. It was just too much. Finally on page 249, I set the book down and swore I wasn't going to finish it. 

This morning though, I decided I couldn't leave it unfinished and got down to the business of reading the last 100 pages. It did end on a high note, but the emotional beating I took over the course of 300 pages wasn't worth it. I could never get to an objective place. Everything that happened to these children, may as well had happened to my own.

The author certainly a wove a story, and the writing is actually good, but my heart. Proceed with caution.