There are many books I love. A few stay with me for a long time. This story will be one. The power of this story caught me in its grasp and I was spellbound for two days.
I didn’t realize when I first read about the book that it is based on true accounts. But after a chapter or two, I suspected, and looked up the facts.
The story gives a fictional account of events that occurred from the 1920s through 1950. Children, basically stolen, placed in the care of a private adoption agency, sold out of state for a price. They were the lucky ones because they lived. The other ones, the ones that died from abuse and malnutrition, may never be entirely known.
Before We Were Yours is a story about Rilla and her younger siblings, taken by Georgia Tann, the adoption agency’s director, from their poor parents during the Great Depression. The story, which bounces from the past to the present, details a tragic tale of these siblings trying to stay together, finding each other as adults, and the loss and tragedy they experienced.
There were parts of this story where I closed the book and cried. No child should endure what was depicted in this novel, and I know it was a sanitized version.
Lisa Wingate, the author, has drawn me in with her writing in the past. The Prayer Box and Tending Roses are two books that touched me immensely. Before We Were Yours is a different style, possibly because it was based on true events. The story unfolds and I wasn’t sure who one of the characters would turn out to be. I had hoped she represented one of the siblings that disappeared in the middle of the story. The heartbreak I experienced as I took this journey with these beautiful children was overwhelming.
Before We Were Yours won Goodreads Best Historical Fiction for 2017. It was a well-deserved honor. The book is simply that good.
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