Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate: A Review

Rill and her siblings, along with their parents, are river people.  They live on a boat and travel with the river.  They don't have a lot of money but they love each other immensely.  When Rill's mother, Queenie, begins to have trouble during one of her deliveries, Rill's father takes Queenie to the hospital to give birth to the twins and leaves the children at home, with Rill in charge.  Before her parents can get home, Rill and her siblings are kidnapped and brought to Georgia Tann, a woman who brokers adoptions.  Georgia Tann runs the Tennessee Children's Home Society and many of the children that she claims are orphans are very much loved children to alive, but usually poor, parents.  Rill struggles to keep her siblings together while fighting off the abuses that she experiences at the boarding house she is entrusted to.

Avery Stafford is a gifted District Attorney who has traveled home to help out with her senator father after he has been diagnosed with cancer.  She is about to fulfill the promise of marrying her childhood sweetheart and stepping into her father's shoes when she meets an older woman at a senior care facility who claims to know her grandmother, a woman who is suffering from dementia.  When Avery brings up the encounter with the woman with her grandmother, her grandmother begins to act as if she remembers something but can't express what it is.  Avery works to uncover the story of the Tennessee Children's Home Society.

The saddest part of this book is that it is based on a true story.  Georgia Tann was a real woman who used her position to kidnap children from loving homes and then adopt them out to rich people in order to earn a hefty fee.  I had no prior knowledge of this heartbreaking story before reading Wingate's book but I learned a lot reading it and her story encouraged me to do more research.  Ms. Tann earned, in today's dollars, millions brokering adoptions with wealthy families and pocketing the adoption fees while ignoring abuse in the boarding houses that she left the children in.

Wingate's wonderful storytelling abilities made reading such a tragic story interesting and enjoyable.  All of the characters have unique voices with Rill's being my favorite.  Rill is such a strong girl, holding up her family at 12-years-old when the rest of her family is falling apart.  I did not think that Avery's story added very much to this book and would have been happy with just the stories of Rill and her siblings.  I would have liked to hear more about them and it seemed as if the book ended somewhat abruptly, without as much information as I would have liked to have.  This could have just been because I fell so much in love with the characters, though, that I felt like I had to know everything about them.

I loved this book and believe anyone who enjoys historical fiction would also like this book.  It was not a depressing book.  It was a sad story but it had enough hope to keep me interested.  This is a sad part of our history that I think people should learn more about.  I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys historical fiction or southern fiction.

My rating:
★★★★★

Watch this video for more information on the Tennessee Children's Home Society:

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Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
If the Creek Don't Rise by Leah Weiss
The Education of Dixie Dupree by Donna Everhart

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I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in order to review it but that did not have an effect on my review of the book.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind.