Dual perspective is used very effectively, with our first narrator being Rill, beginning in 1939 when she was twelve years old. Rill is put in charge of her four younger siblings when her mother has difficulty delivering her sixth child and must be taken to the hospital. Rill and her family live on a riverboat traveling up and down the Mississippi trying to survive. They are "river gypsies." While her parents are gone, all five children are taken away to a boarding house serving as an orphanage. They are told they will see their parents soon, but that is a lie.
The second perspective is Avery Stafford, a woman who is about to have it all. She is a successful lawyer who is engaged to be married. The wedding promises to be one of South Carolina's most lavish affairs. We are in the present day, and Avery's father, the senator, is grooming Avery to be his replacement if he must retire. Avery is on a political outing with her father when she meets an old woman in a nursing home named May. When May tells Avery she knows her grandmother, Judy, Avery thinks she must be confused. May simply didn't associate with the kind of people that Judy Stafford did. And Grandma Judy is now in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's, so she isn't much help.
Avery is compelled to find out why May thinks she knows Judy. As we are exposed to the absurdly harsh and unjust treatment Rill and her siblings are subjected to, we follow Avery as she secretly works to uncover her family's hidden past, revelations that will possibly redefine all of Avery's hopes and dreams for her future.
Before We Were Yours moves at a pretty slow pace and drags even more in the middle, but the story that unfolds is so unbelievable that you can't stop reading. Because it is based on true events, it is even more fascinating.
Each perspective is narrated by a different person, and both of them read too slowly for my taste. It is a story from the South, so the slow, southern drawl was appropriate, I guess, but I'm too impatient. I had to speed it up.
Overall, Before We Were Yours is a worthwhile read, and I would definitely recommend it. Depending on your taste, you may want to choose to read it rather than listen, but either way, you will enjoy the experience.
Published by Ballentine, 2017, Random House Audio, 2018
Audiobook obtained from the library
352 pages
Rating: 4/5
I have this on my shelf and keep hearing good things about it. I must read it soon.
ReplyDeleteWe read this for book club. I found the information about the Tennessee Children Association very interesting and heart breaking. There were parts of the fictional story that just didn't work for me. I liked the book overall but it isn't a favorite.
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