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Before We Were YoursIntroduction of the ebook: Before We Were Yours
Đánh giá : 4.38 /5 (sao)
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, 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. …more
Review ebook Before We Were Yours
But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse.
I still maintain that The Heart’s Invisible Furies and Pachinko were more deserving of the Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction, but I can definitely see why Before We Were Yours has had such an emotional impact on readers.
Comparisons to Orphan Train make a lot of sense. The pacing and structure of both stories are similar, a But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse.
I still maintain that The Heart’s Invisible Furies and Pachinko were more deserving of the Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction, but I can definitely see why Before We Were Yours has had such an emotional impact on readers.
Comparisons to Orphan Train make a lot of sense. The pacing and structure of both stories are similar, and they both use the alternating older/younger narrator format to link the present day with the past (a favoured technique by many historical fiction writers, which is also used in The Thirteenth Tale, The Alice Network, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane).
But, most of all, Before We Were Yours stands out for doing one of my absolute favourite things in historical fiction: exposing a largely unknown and horrific pocket of history.
Alternating between the perspectives of privileged and successful Avery Stafford in the present, and twelve-year-old Rill Floss in depression-era Memphis, a story emerges linking Avery’s grandmother to Rill and her four siblings, who were stolen from their riverboat home and their two loving parents. Through the dual narrative and Avery’s digging into the past, a tale of unimaginable horrors is uncovered.
Obviously, some people will have heard of Georgia Tann and the mass kidnapping and trafficking of Tennessee children, but I hadn’t and I would bet a lot of others haven’t either. In this book, we see how Tann led a team in capturing children from poor families and selling them to the wealthy. The children were first taken to a kind of halfway house where they were starved, beaten and even molested. Fictional details have been added but, in the end, it is so especially horrific because most of it is true.
If I was to complain about anything, it would be the way the characters frequently have whole conversations without specific names, just to keep the reader guessing who is who, even when it doesn’t make sense for them to withhold the person’s name. This is a minor quibble, though, and I do understand the necessity for it.
Overall, I really “enjoyed” the book. Rill and her sisters feel real. Their fear feels real. Their love for one another feels real. It is a history lesson wrapped up in a powerful and emotive story. A fictional tale that reveals a hidden truth.
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