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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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What Members Thought

Sep 25, 2017 Kristin rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017-books, 4000-books

The third time was the charm for me with this book. When I first started it, I thought it was very depressing. The book relies on two time periods with fictional characters to portray events of an actual adoption agency which operated from the 1920's to 1950 in Tennessee. One of the main characters, Rill, a young adolescent, was put in very dire circumstances along with her brother and sisters, and I was afraid she would never find her way to a happier outcome. So I read with trepidation and at ...more

13 likes · Like · see review

Jul 27, 2018 Kate rated it liked it

I have to saw I’m surprised by how this book received such a high rating. It’s the story of a “orphanage” in Tennessee; however, the children are not orphans, but have rather been stolen from their parents (often river gypsies) or their parents have signed them over to the care of the women who run the house. The women then place these children in the homes of their wealthy clients at an exorbitant price. This book goes back and for between the present time and the 1930s. The story in the presen ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Nov 13, 2018 Jackie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-clubs, 300-to-400, historical-fiction, the-life-of-a-book-addict, the-perks-of-being-a-book-addict, library-books, where-s-your-card, north-america, south-carolina, tennessee

Excellent story based on true events regarding adoptions.

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 20, 2018 Olivermagnus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, 2022, zfeb-2022

Before We Were Yours begins in 1939 on a Mississippi River shanty boat, the Arcadia. The Foss family, parents Queenie and Briny, and their five children, Rill, Camilla, Lark, Fern and Gabion, make their lives on the boat. When birth complications require Queenie and Briny to leave the boat, things go terrifyingly wrong.

The story then switches to the present day where we meet Avery Stafford, who has returned home to help her senator father during a health crisis. She stumbles across an old woman ...more

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