Review: Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this in part because it was a book club book and several of my fellow book clubbers were saying how good it was. Once I read the fact that it’s the novelization of real events around the kidnapping and illegal adoptions of children in Tennessee, I was IN! And, boy, did this one deliver! This is historical fiction of the best kind – heartbreaking, important, educational, and important and all the other words like these! This story takes place between 1920 and 1960 when numerous children were stolen from their homes and families and subjected to adoptions by Georgia Tann and the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. The author uses one family with five siblings to demonstrate the experiences of these children and their families. There are two storylines which weave together throughout – one in the present and another in the past. I think they were woven so effectively and interestingly. In the end, I found the entire novel to be so impactful and heartbreaking. The inhumanity experienced by the children in this novel is just devastating. I didn’t find the experiences of the novel to be in any way gratuitous but they are harrowing and heartbreaking for the reader. The abuse and neglect that is described is handled effectively by Lisa Wingate and shouldn’t disturb most readers. I highly recommend this one to any and all!