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Before We Were Yours

Lisa Wingate

Start date: December 1, 2021

Finish date: December 31, 2021

Discussion: December 2021

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Showing 2 of 5 topics — 5 comments total

December 2021

Before We Were Yours
By Tina , Creator · 1 post · 5 views

last updated Dec 02, 2021 06:36AM

A Promised Land
By Tina , Creator · 1 post · 2 views

last updated Dec 02, 2021 06:36AM

What Members Thought

Apr 16, 2019 Chantal rated it really liked it

Shelves: ebook-nl, ebook-en, new-york-bestseller-list-read

Although the first 6 chapters started slow, the book started to blossom after that. It was a really sad story based on a true situation in American history. How sad that this went on for so many years. It made me tear up for more than once and made me smile at the end. Great story and easy to read. It deserves 5 stars!

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Aug 03, 2018 Robin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

although this book was fiction, it is actually based on real life events that happened years ago. the entire idea of there even being any truth to the whole story is horrifying. there are two main stories that eventually entwine into one.

~the past one is narrated by Rill, a 12-year-old young girl who tries hard to keep her family together when she and her three younger sisters and brother are practically kidnapped and taken away from their parents and brought to a childrens home in tennessee. b although this book was fiction, it is actually based on real life events that happened years ago. the entire idea of there even being any truth to the whole story is horrifying. there are two main stories that eventually entwine into one.

~the past one is narrated by Rill, a 12-year-old young girl who tries hard to keep her family together when she and her three younger sisters and brother are practically kidnapped and taken away from their parents and brought to a childrens home in tennessee. between the 1920s-1950s, the woman ran the home illegally brokered children to whoever was willing to pay for them, using scare tactics to get the parents to sign away their rights with false promises to pay hospital bills and lies about stillborn babies just because they were poor and she felt she could offer the children better lives once she placed them in what she felt were more suitable homes. not to say the kids had such a great life as poor little river rats, but at least they were together, loved, and wanted by their parents. it is unfathomable that the people who ran the childrens home actually thought they were doing the children right by taking them away from the only life they knew. although the foss children are fictional characters, their story is based on real facts that actually happened to many of these children, many who didnt ever get to live on to tell about it.

~the modern day story is told by a 30-year-old woman former attorney named Avery who (view spoiler) comes from a prestigious political southern family whose world would be turned upside down if this story actually came out. when Avery comes across information about her grandmother Judy's past, it opens up a whole bunch of questions leading to the childrens home story, but unfortunately Judy suffers from dementia and cannot provide answers. luckily, then Avery accidently meets May (view spoiler) and eventually she learns how she is actually connected to her grandmother and the significance the dragonfly bracelet Avery now wears had to them both.

although the events that go with this story are truly sad, thankfully most the Foss children ended up adopted by well-off families and seemed to have decent lives (view spoiler)

i dont recall how i heard about this book, i think i saw it won historical fiction awards and i usually like historical fiction, so maybe that how i found it, but was but overall it was definitely a captivating story that i am glad i read and learned a little history about this unfortunate situation. ...more

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