Name: Colleen's review of Before and After by Lisa Wingate
Item: Before and After
Rating: 3
Author: Colleen

Lisa Wingate

Judy Christie

In a poignant culmination of art meeting life, long-silent victims of a tragically corrupt adoption system return to Memphis with Wingate and Christie to reclaim their stories at a Tennessee Children's Home Society reunion--with extraordinary results.ults.

The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society

Before and After

Sarah Stephens

Colleen

3 Stars
 
*A fractured book that is part memoir, part anecdote, and part self-promotion*
 

I was debating which to read first: Before We Were Yours or Before and After. I went with the nonfiction Before and After because I prefer to have at least a general idea of the facts before reading the fiction. Both books are about the Tennessee Children's Home Society. First Lisa Wingate wrote her fictional story, Before We Were Yours. Because of the response to her novel, she decided to host a reunion of sorts for families affected by the tragic events surrounding the Tennessee Children's Home Society. Then she teamed up with Judy Christie to write a nonfiction book partially about organizing the reunion and partially a collection of stories from the affected families.

I have extremely mixed feelings about Before and After. One the one hand, it is a touching book and easy to read. I had no problem reading the whole thing in one day. And many of the stories within were quite poignant. On the other hand, this book is undeniably a huge, shameless plug for Before We Were Yours.

If you want historical documentation about the TCHS, then Before and After isn't the book for that. While a lot of research went into this book, it is primarily anecdotal evidence from victims. There is very little information about the children who died at that horrible place. There isn't much information about the legalities around the scandal either other than the mention about the eventual opening of adoption records. These stories are more about putting faces to individual names rather than historical documentation. 

On a more technical level, I had issues with the co-authorship. I generally avoid books with multiple authors because they tend to be messy and lack cohesion. Before and After is no exception to that. Having two authors was confusing especially since this is part memoir. Most of the time I could not tell who was narrating. And I’m pretty sure they talked about themselves in third person in some parts.

There aren't any major spoilers for Before We Were Yours within, but this book is clearly intended as supplemental material for those who read and loved the novel. I can totally see the people within this book gasping, clutching their pearls, and dramatically exclaiming, “What do you mean, you haven’t read Before We Were Yours yet?!?” Christie and Wingate act as if every decent bookclub in America has already selected that book. I feel obliged to inform my bookclub that we are unacceptably lacking since we unwittingly committed the social faux pas of not reading the right (I.E. Popular & Bestselling) book. Any day now we might be forcibly disbanded for Crimes Against Bookclub.

I expected a certain amount of self-promotion going into this. At first, I was able to overlook it both because of the emotional impact of some of these stories, and because it is at least somewhat justified since Before We Were Yours is what brought about this book and the reunion. But almost every single story started with “Because I read Before We Were Yours …” Everything ties back to that book. It is mentioned over and over how much people loved that book, how long it was on the best seller list, how their lives were changed by it, how it gave them the courage to speak up about their own experiences, etc. Not to mention the name dropping. I remember the exact moment when I got fed up with these overdone plugs. The author was relaying a secondhand story that someone had read a different book about the Tennessee Children's Home Society, asked the author about it, and apparently the author insisted that person they just had to read Before We Were Yours. The author and other book are deliberately unnamed, but Christie’s book is applauded overenthusiastically. 

Sadly, I am much less excited to read Before We Were Yours now. I probably will still read it, but I'll take it all with a grain of salt. The in-your-face cheerleading in Before and After severely dampened my enthusiasm. I’m conflicted on whether or not I would recommend this book to anyone. As I mentioned, I was moved by parts of it. But now that it’s over, I can’t shake that icky feeling of the hard sell and self-promotion gimmick.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Attention to Details: 3 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Objectivity: 1 Star

Jan Talkington

The stories of people affected by the Tennessee Children's Home Society are interesting and touching. The style in which it was written seemed a little disjointed. There were times when the author spoke of themselves in third person which was confusing too. I recommend reading "Before We Were Yours" first. Even though it is fiction, it explained the TCHS inner workings and that influenced how I read and understood the stories of those who found themselves literally in the grip of Georgia Tann.

Sarah Stephens &
Before and After by Lisa Wingate

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