Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (Details)
Book Title: Before We Were Yours
Book Author: Lisa Wingate
Date Published: Hardcover – June 6, 2017
Number Of Pages: 368
Achievements: Bestseller on: New Your Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, & Publishers Weekly; Winner of the Southern Book Prize
My Rating: ★★★★
Find It On: Amazon | GoodReads
Jump to: Before We Were Yours (Summary) | Before We Were Yours (Book Review)
Before We Were Yours (Summary)
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate is a fictional story based on true events.
Set in the present day, Avery Stafford seems to have it all. When her father suffers a health crisis, she returns home and begins to embark on a journey into her family’s past.
Backtracking to Memphis in the 1930s, Rill Foss and her siblings are taken from their home and find themselves at the mercy of Georgia Tann.
The true story: the good
From 1922-1950, Georgia Tann ran an adoption agency that helped thousands of people adopt children. In those days, adoption was seen as a bad thing and Georgia Tann helped change that opinion in America.
The true story: the evil
The above paragraph is the only positive thing that can be said about Georgia Tann. Her methods of acquiring (yes, she saw them as assets) children varied from lying to parents, scamming them, and outright stealing children. It’s estimated that she stole over 5,000 children. (from Wikipedia)
She would then lie to wealthy people who wanted to adopt children about where the children came from and charge them thousands in adoption fees.
The worst part, yes, even worse than the kidnappings, is how the children were treated. They were abused in every way and many died under her care.
Before We Were Yours (Book Review)
I would have loved this book if it was all about Rill and her family. Rill fascinated me and I really liked her character. She had spunk and a determination that helped her through very rough times. Her story was not predictable to me. It came with quite a few turns I didn’t see coming.
However, I really didn’t like any of the current day aspects. I didn’t care for Avery’s story. Her story was predictable and it turned me off to the story in general. Each time I got to the chapters on the present day, I found myself putting the book down or skimming through the chapter.
