From the Bookshelf of Crazy Challenge Connection…

Before We Were Yours

Lisa Wingate

Discussion: Crazy Challenges - No Way!

Why we're reading this: Awesome mixed genre. Historical fiction/contemporary fiction.
[close] Awesome mixed genre. Historical fiction/contemporary fiction.

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Crazy Challenges - No Way!

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* Crazy Challenges
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last updated Jan 09, 2013 06:08PM

Clean Out That Fridge!
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What Members Thought

Nov 30, 2017 Gina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: child-abduction, female-lawyers, grief, health, mystery-crime, kidnapping, missing-persons, sisters, sociology, 5-00-rating

Wow! This is a heart wrenching and powerful book based on true events. The Tennessee Children’s Home trafficked children from the 1920’s through the 1950’s. They managed to get their “orphans” illegally by steamrolling poor women in labor telling them their bills would be paid for, informing women that their babies died after birth, to simply kidnapping poor children like what happened to the fictional characters in this book. Georgia Tann, the woman who ran the home, was held in high regard amo ...more

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Apr 02, 2024 Lali & Michelle rated it liked it

Shelves: book-club

Another dual timeline historical fiction. In the current day, Avery is a lawyer who has returned home to South Carolina to help her U.S. Senator father as he undergoes treatment for cancer. She is also being groomed to take his place if his cancer progresses to the point that he can't fulfill his responsibilities. She is engaged to her lifelong friend, but neither is eager to set the date. Avery is also saddened by her beloved grandmother's slide into dementia. Because the family is wealthy, her Another dual timeline historical fiction. In the current day, Avery is a lawyer who has returned home to South Carolina to help her U.S. Senator father as he undergoes treatment for cancer. She is also being groomed to take his place if his cancer progresses to the point that he can't fulfill his responsibilities. She is engaged to her lifelong friend, but neither is eager to set the date. Avery is also saddened by her beloved grandmother's slide into dementia. Because the family is wealthy, her grandmother is in a luxury memory care facility which has brought criticism of her father because many of his elderly constituents live in unacceptable conditions. While visiting another retirement home to improve her father's image, Avery meets May and that brings us to the second timeline.

Rill lives on a houseboat on the Mississippi River with her parents and her four siblings -- three sisters and a brother. Her mother is pregnant and when there are complications with the delivery of twins, Rill's father has to take her mother to the hospital. Rill is given responsibility for watching out for the others, but within a few days a group of men come and take them away, promising that they are taking them to the hospital to visit their mother. Instead, they take them to an orphanage. The historical timeline then tells the story of the infamous orphanage and adoption ring run by Georgia Tann in Tennessee from the 1920s until 1950. She controlled numerous orphanages where children lived under conditions so horrendous that it is estimated that up to 500 children died. Many were stolen from their parents using subterfuge or the legal system. Then, they were adopted out with little concern as to where they were going and what happened to them after the adoption--as long as the parents paid.

The positives of the book are that it brings attention to yet another horrendous episode in American history where children were taken from the parents. While I had some issues with the writing, the author did succeed in making me feel heartsick for what happened to the fictional and real children caught up in this system. But that brings me to my primary criticism of the book--it is a textbook example of what I consider "trauma porn." Any awful thing that was done to the children by Georgia Tann and her associates happens to Rill and her siblings in the period they are in the orphanage including (view spoiler) which I really think should have had a trigger warning. The children are separated, underfed, terrorized, etc. It is one blow after another for hundreds of pages. I know trauma porn is very popular because books that include it are always on the bestseller lists and winning Goodreads Choice awards and getting 4.40 ratings on Goodreads, but I really dislike it. I don't want to be beat over the head with trauma carried out by cartoonishly evil people. I prefer books with more subtlety and gradations of evil that cause me to reflect rather than leaving me feeling emotionally manipulated.

There are a number of other issues with the book as well regarding adoption, class and privilege. All of the children that we follow end up in wealthy households and there is an implication that really they were better off to have access to music, art, etc., like only wealthy people can access those things. And the adoptions are kept secret generations later ... because being adopted is shameful? I brought this up in my book group and there was general consensus that oh, yes if wealthy, society people knew the history of the family they would be judged. Whatever. One of the themes of the book is the transcendent nature of sisterly love but they don't acknowledge each other publicly because society might judge them? Avery is also annoying. She eventually decides to try to make her own path because she doesn't want things handed to her. Her entitlement and privilege are made even more annoying by her apparent failure to understand how much she has benefited from them. Not sure if the author intended that or not, but annoying either way. Overall, not a book I would recommend although I will think about Rill (view spoiler) for quite a while--even if doing so makes me feel manipulated. ...more

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Feb 22, 2019 Megan Guffey rated it really liked it

Dec 04, 2017 Robyn marked it as to-read

Shelves: historical-fiction, must-reads

1 like · Like

Dec 05, 2017 Shannon marked it as to-read

Jan 01, 2018 Gretchen Hicks added it · review of another edition

Jan 15, 2018 Colleen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook

Mar 26, 2018 Keksisbaby marked it as to-read

Shelves: on-my-kindle

Apr 16, 2018 Jirrine added it

Apr 26, 2018 Jessiebee marked it as tbr-ebook · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, 20th-century, goodreads-choice, tennessee, adult-fiction, south-carolina, own-apple, multiple-time-periods, adoption, present-day