Before We Were Yours

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.